Griles’ Ex-Gal Pal Gets No Jail TimeIf there’s one thing that the Abramoff scandal has taught us, it’s that it pays to snitch.
An environmental advocate who provided Jack Abramoff’s entree into the Interior Department was sentenced Friday to two months in a halfway house and four years probation.Italia Federici, who pleaded guilty in June to tax evasion and obstructing a Senate investigation, was spared prison only because she has become a key witness in the Justice Department’s ongoing corruption investigation.
(I would be remiss if I didn’t amusedly note the AP’s description of Federici as an “environmental advocate.” She did indeed head a group called Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), so the word “environmental” was in her group’s title. But her advocacy was definitely against the environmental movement, not with it.)
Federici was key in helping the feds bag Steven Griles, formerly the deputy secretary of the Interior Department (and formerly her boyfriend). Griles was sentenced to 10 months in prison back in June. And for that, she’s been rewarded.
The scheme went this way: Jack Abramoff’s tribal clients gave CREA at least $500,000 in contributions, providing practically the entire operating budget for the group. In return, Federici used her close connections to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton (for whom she used to work) and the #2 Steven Griles (whom she was dating) to make sure that Abramoff’s concerns were addressed. Here’s the whole rundown.