Thursday, June 28, 2007

Dana Milbank - Abramoff, Prison and a Crazy Little Thing Called Love - washingtonpost.com

Dana Milbank - Abramoff, Prison and a Crazy Little Thing Called Love - washingtonpost.com:

Love is a many-splendored thing -- unless you're under investigation by the feds. Then it can be quite a nuisance.

Had J. Steven Griles not been busy with so many lady friends while serving as the No. 2 official in the Interior Department, he probably wouldn't have scored a date yesterday with another woman: Judge Ellen Huvelle of U.S. District Court, who sentenced Griles to 10 months in prison for obstructing an investigation into the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Griles asked Abramoff for favors for the women in his life, prosecutors said, and in exchange helped Abramoff's clients with their government business. One of Griles's girlfriends, Italia Federici, got $500,000 for her nonprofit from Abramoff's Indian tribes.

'I concealed the nature and extent of my true relationship with Italia Federici,' Griles confessed to the judge yesterday in a statement interrupted by stifled sobs. Choking out the words, a burly, red-faced Griles told Huvelle that 'this has been the most difficult time in my life. My guilty plea has brought me great shame and embarrassment.'

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