Americas

Griles faces sentencing in Abramoff case

(AP)
Updated: 2007-06-26 01:10

The former No. 2 official at the Interior Department says he does not deserve prison time in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles faces sentencing Tuesday for obstruction of justice. He has admitted lying to a Senate committee investigating his relationship with the disgraced lobbyist.

As part of his plea deal, prosecutors recommended that Griles serve no more than a 10-month sentence, but only half of it in prison. The other five months would be either in a halfway house or under house arrest.

Griles is asking for leniency. He is seeking three months house arrest, community service and "a reasonable fine."

In court documents, Griles minimized his role in the Abramoff scandal. He said he never accepted anything of value from Abramoff and he asked a judge to consider his career of public service.

Prosecutors painted a different picture. They described Griles as Abramoff's key contact in the Interior Department, an important agency for a lobbyist whose clients included Indian tribes.

When one of Abramoff's clients was denied $1.3 million in a land settlement, Abramoff appealed to Griles. Abramoff also encouraged Griles to keep President Bush from endorsing anyone in the Northern Mariana Islands governor's race. The island commonwealth was an Abramoff client.

Second in rank only to then-Secretary Gale Norton, Griles effectively was Interior's chief operating officer while at the agency between July 2001 and January 2005, and its top representative on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.

Abramoff won access to Griles through Italia Federici, a Republican activist who introduced the two men. Federici and Griles began a romantic relationship and Griles has acknowledged that he gave Abramoff more credibility because of Federici's introduction.

Griles encouraged Abramoff to raise money for Federici's organization, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, prosecutors said. Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give $500,000 to the organization — donations that prosecutors believe were to ensure Abramoff's access to Griles.

Federici pleaded guilty this month tax evasion and obstruction. Unlike Griles, she is cooperating with investigators.

Awaiting sentencing in the bribery scandal, Abramoff already is serving six years in prison for a bogus Florida casino deal.