|
Court papers indicate Scotland trip was for golf, drinking, ‘smoking Cubans’ Saturday, April 01, 2006 Jack Torry THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
WASHINGTON — A third former Washington lobbyist pleaded guilty yesterday in a widening political corruption scandal, and all three of the lobbyists are cooperating with federal prosecutors in their investigation of Ohio Rep. Bob Ney and other members of Congress.
Tony Rudy, who previously served as a deputy chief of staff to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a charge of conspiracy to corrupt elected officials.
Rudy joins former lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon in telling prosecutors that Ney and his staff were plied with trips, tickets to sporting events and food in return for Ney helping Abramoff’s business clients.
Rudy, who left DeLay’s office to join Abramoff’s firm, invited Ney and a top aide on a 2002 trip to Scotland, telling the Ney aide the trip involved golf, "drinking and smoking Cubans," according to documents made public yesterday.
"The American public loses when officials and lobbyists conspire to buy and sell influence in such a corrupt and brazen manner. By his admission in open court today, Mr. Rudy paints a picture of Washington which the American public and law enforcement will simply not tolerate," said Alice Fisher...Rudy says in the court filing that Ney, a Republican from Heath, in Licking County, supported a bill in 2001 to help an Abramoff client in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth.
Golfing, drinking and smoking Cubans, eh??
|