$10,000 for Favors

© 2006 Com•Log•ic

On Oct. 20, 2000, the e-mail records show, Scanlon sent Abramoff a draft of a statement praising Adam Kidan, a co-owner of SunCruz Casinos, a Florida gambling-boat company that Abramoff and Kidan had bought the month before, after a public dispute with the previous owner. Abramoff and Kidan, who have since pleaded guilty in Florida to fraud in connection with their financing of the SunCruz purchase, hoped that Ney's positive statement would "let people know that SunCruz now was in honest hands," according to a source familiar with the case. In an Oct. 23 e-mail, Abramoff proposed throwing $10,000 at the NRCC in the form of a SunCruz check signed by Kidan. The money was sent within days, and Ney got credit within the G.O.P. for raising it. Ney then inserted praise for Kidan into the Oct. 26 Congressional Record.

Questions for Bob posed by the Daily Delay:

1. When Michael Scanlon, the former DeLay spokesman and then-Abramoff business partner), asked you to make March, 2000 Congressional Record remarks targeting SunCruz founder Gus Boulis, did you or your staff ever ask him why you should do such a thing?

2. Why did you feel that SunCruz Casinos and Gus Boulis’s business practices in Florida were relevant to your duties representing your constituents in the 18th District of Ohio?

3. Why, in your Congressional record remarks, did you single Boulis out for attack and call for a federal investigation of his business practices? As The Washington Post reported, the effect of these remarks was to exert pressure on Boulis to agree to the sale terms proposed by Abramoff and Adam Kidan.

4. Were your remarks drafted for you wholly or in part by Michael Scanlon and/or his staff?

5. Were you aware at the time of those first Congressional Record remarks that Scanlon was working closely with Abramoff, and were you aware then that that Abramoff had entered into a secret and improper partnership with Kidan to buy SunCruz?

6. You later stated that you felt you were duped by Abramoff and Kidan, called them “nefarious individuals,” and said you had rejected them. When did you first conclude that they had duped you, and form the opinion that they were “nefarious”?

7. What was the contact that led to separate $1,000 contributions to your campaign on June 29 and 30, 2000 from Kidan, Abramoff, Abramoff’s wife, and Scanlon?

8. On Oct. 26, 2000, you inserted remarks in the Congressional Record stating that Adam Kidan “will easily transform SunCruz from a questionable enterprise to an upstanding establishment.” What was the basis for your belief that he would do so?

9. Were you aware, at the time of your second Congressional Record remarks, of Adam Kidan’s checkered background of lawsuits, liens, court judgments, bankruptcy, possible links to organized crime, or his use of a phony $23 million wire transfer and two separate checks for $2.5 million each which bounced, as part of the purchase of SunCruz?

10. Were you aware then that Kidan had been disbarred in New York two weeks after your first Congressional Record remarks for mishandling $100,000 he held in an escrow account for his stepfather?

11. Gus Boulis was killed in a gangland-style slaying on Feb. 6, 2001, after his deal to sell SunCruz to Abramoff and Kidan went sour. Adam Kidan reportedly arranged for $145,000 in payments starting less than two months before the slaying to mob-linked Anthony Moscatiello and his daughter, for which no work was apparently performed, according to The Washington Post. When did you first become aware that Kidan was a longtime acquaintance of Moscatiello, who had previously been indicted in New York in a case involving organized crime and members of the Gambino family?

12. Was Anthony Moscatiello present at the fundraiser that the casino boat executives held for you on March 15, 2001 in lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s skybox at the MCI Center, where Abramoff and Adam Kidan each contributed $1,000 to you? Did you know, at the time of this event, that Boulis had been murdered five weeks before your fundraiser?

13. Your spokesperson at the time, Neil Volz, indicated that you would return Kidan’s contribution. When reporters pointed out that FEC records indicate that never happened, you said your campaign had tried to refund the money but the checks were “returned to sender” because Kidan couldn’t be located. Could you provide copies of those returned checks, and have you made any subsequent efforts to return this money?

The Daily Delay
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