Jack Abramoff (; born February 28, 1958) is an American former lobbyist and businessman. In 2006, courts found him guilty of mail fraud and conspiracy. He was the center of very large corruption investigation. The investigation led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides. He served three years, six months of a six-year sentence in federal prison before being released early to a Baltimore halfway house on June 8, 2010.
Abramoff was College Republican National Committee National Chairman from 1981 to 1985. He was a founding member of the International Freedom Foundation. He later became a lobbyist for the firm of Preston Gates & Ellis and later the firm of Greenberg Traurig. He served as a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, and Toward Tradition. His wife Pam and their five children live in Maryland.
Abramoff's lobbying and the scandals and investigation are the subject of two 2010 movies. These first movie was the documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money. It was released in May 2010. The second movie was Casino Jack. It was released on December 17, 2010 and starred Kevin Spacey as Abramoff.
Scandal and criminal investigations
In late 2004, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee began to investigate Abramoff's lobbying for American Indian tribes and casinos. In September he was called before the committee to answer questions about that work. He did not answer their questions and pleaded the fifth. In August 2005, Abramoff and Kidan were indicted by a federal jury in Miami for wire fraud in their dealings with SunCruz Casinos.
On January 3, 2006, Abramoff said he was guilty of three criminal felonies related to the defrauding of American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials in a Washington, D.C., federal court. The four tribes Abramoff and his associates had been involved with included Michigan's Saginaw Chippewas, California's Agua Caliente, the Mississippi Choctaws, and the Louisiana Coushattas. It was said that Abramoff defrauded the tribes of tens of millions of dollars. The next day, he said he was guilty of two criminal felonies in a separate federal court, in Miami. These felonies involved the SunCruz deal.
On September 4, 2008, a Washington court found Abramoff guilty of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips for political favors. He was given a four-year term in prison. This time was to be served concurrent ("at the same time") with his earlier sentences.
Abramoff served three and a half years of a six-year sentence for conspiracy, honest services fraud, and tax evasion. He could have spent up to 11 years in prison for the mail fraud, conspiracy, and tax evasion charges because of the influence-peddling scandal in Washington. U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle sentenced Abramoff to four years in federal prison on September 4, 2008. Abramoff helped in a bribery investigation involving lawmakers, their aides, and members of the George W. Bush administration.
Biography
Jack Abramoff was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey into a wealthy and well known Jewish family. His father, Franklin Abramoff, was president of the Franchises unit of Diners Club.
In 1968, when Abramoff was 10, his family moved to Beverly Hills, California. Abramoff studied at Beverly Hills High School. In high school he played football and was a member of the wrestling team.
As an undergraduate at Brandeis University, Abramoff was Chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans. That group organized student volunteers for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. He graduated with a B.A. in English in 1981. He took six years to finish his degree. Abramoff got his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1986.