Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison and ordered to pay $23 million in restitution to victims based on his pleading guilty to conspiracy, honest services fraud and tax evasion charges.
Abramoff is already serving nearly six years for fraud in connection with a Florida casino deal.
He faced an additional 11 years when he entered the sentencing hearing, but prosecutors asked for a much more lenient sentence of less than four years. Defense attorneys said he deserves even less time because of his help in nabbing others convicted in lobbyist and corruption cases.
The recent sentencing was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the District of Columbia.
Abramoff, 49, was also sentenced to three years of supervision following his release from prison. Abramoff on Jan. 3, 2006, pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit “honest services” fraud involving public officials and fraud involving Abramoff’s clients, one count of honest services fraud involving public officials, and one count of tax evasion.
According to the plea agreement signed by Abramoff, from 1994 through early 2004, he lobbied public officials in the federal government while working in the Washington, D.C., offices of two law firms – first at Seattle-based Preston Gates & Ellis and in 2001 for Miami-based Greenberg Traurig.
According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Abramoff admitted he conspired to defraud four Native American Indian tribes that either operated, or were interested in operating, gaming casinos. Each of the clients, which were tribes located in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Michigan, hired Abramoff, through his employers, to give advice regarding how best to limit competition from competing casinos or, in one instance, to reopen a previously closed casino.
John E Sununu in 2006 On October 24, 2001, convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and four Alexander Strategies Group associates donated $1,000 each to the Rely on Your Beliefs Fund. This political action committee in turn donated $3,000 to Republican Representative John Sununu's primary campaign in New Hampshire on the same day, through the political action committee Team Sununu. The Greenberg Traurig lobbying company, which also employed Abramoff, gave $1000 to Team Sununu on December 16, 2002 for purposes of 'debt retirement.'

According to a report by the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Jack Abramoff commonly told Native American tribal clients to divert their funds through the Alexander Strategies Group. Earlier that October, Jack Abramoff had met with the legislative director of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Michigan. Representative John Sununu, now a sitting senator from New Hampshire, had served on the Appropriations Committee that helped draft the Department of Interior funding bill. In the section on Native American water claims, land claims, and miscellaneous payments, over $6,000,000 in funding was given to Michigan fishing in the Great Lakes.

The event occurred a day before the presentation of a Department of Interior funding bill to President George W. Bush for signing, and a week after the conference report settling differences between the House and the Senate. Abramoff wrote to fellow lobbyist Michael Scanlon on October 4, 2001 via e-mail, "I had dinner tonight with Chris Petras of Sag Chip. He was salivating at the $4-5 million program I described to him (is that enough? Probably not)."

Jack Abramoff was sentenced to four years in federal prison earlier this month. He had admitted to conspiring to defraud four Native American tribes that either operated or were interested in operating casinos. The other three donors to the fund linked to Sununu were all members of the Alexander Strategy Group, including its founder, former Tom DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham. Donor Jim Ellis had led the group Preston Gates & Ellis, which also employed Jack Abramoff. A fourth contributor was J. Thomas Smith, Jr., who had served as the Alexander Strategy Group's lawyer.

The Alexander Strategy Group was shut down in January due to ties with Jack Abramoff and former House majority leader Tom DeLay. The Rely On Your Beliefs Fund, owned by former Rep. Roy Blunt, has already donated to charity $8,500 equivalent to the amount personally contributed by Jack Abramoff in 2006. In November 2004, Gannett News Service had reported that Abromoff directed the Tigua tribe to contribute to the Rely On Your Beliefs Fund. In January 2006, John Sununu donated to charity $3000 he had received from the Saginaw Chipewa from the Daniel Webster PAC.