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Griles' Ex-Gal Pal Gets No Jail Time
If 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.
Comments (14)
TheraP wrote on December 14, 2007 1:58 PM:Mrs P, where are you? You dug so deeply into this!
We miss you!
Utopia wrote on December 14, 2007 2:03 PM:That's Federici in the picture up top? Griles looks old enough to be her father! Another one of those family values guys I suppose.
U
tony wrote on December 14, 2007 2:08 PM:haha...she rode him then turned on him.
women---can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em.
Steve5117 wrote on December 14, 2007 2:15 PM:TheraP
I agree, it doesn't seem the same around here since Mrs. Panstreppon left. I wish she hadn't removed all her posts at TPMCafe, they were very instructive.
I hope she's still muckraking and getting paid for it!
TheOtherWA wrote on December 14, 2007 2:29 PM:Wasn't Federici close friends with Gale Norton? I still wonder why Norton quit the DOI suddenly to "spend more time with her family."
Hmmm. It's all so murky. :)
rita wrote on December 14, 2007 3:13 PM:Ms. Federici was one very disrespectful, belligerent witness in the McCain-Dorgan hearings. She made Ms. Doan look good in comparison. Federici got off easy.
brendancalling wrote on December 14, 2007 3:16 PM:she looks like she could find work rooting for truffles.
Anonymous wrote on December 14, 2007 3:20 PM:Federici and Gayle Norton went way back - to Colorado. Federici was both a fundraiser and a chief of staff to Gayle.
The ties run very deep.
Anonymous wrote on December 14, 2007 3:21 PM:@Steve5117
Butterscotch?
Dee Illuminati wrote on December 14, 2007 4:40 PM:she looks like she could find work rooting for truffles.
LOL
I thought how she might look inhaling aging hot dogs while she was working
Steve5117 wrote on December 14, 2007 7:38 PM:Anonymous wrote on December 14, 2007 3:21 PM:
@Steve5117
Butterscotch?
Butterscotch means nothing to me, please explain.
Dr. Wu wrote on December 16, 2007 9:59 AM:This is bullshit. Frederici was Abramoff's bagwoman at Interior, and the key cog in the middle of a long-running pay-for-play system to sell access to Gale Norton when she was Secretary of the Interior). Her testimony to the Senate Indian Affairs Subcomittee was so laughably perjurious that John McCain looked like he was ready to come across the table and choke her. That this lying whore gets a walk instead of a ten-year bid in the federal pen is an absolute travesty of justice.
RAFAEL wrote on December 31, 2007 3:23 PM:I WILL DO SEX COU PITO YOU PATO ANDBUT OF
RAFAEL wrote on December 31, 2007 3:24 PM:MICO CU PITES BOOOO GUHA KISE YOUR KIS AND KIS DID KIS JUT SIX AT HOME.
I WILL DO SEX COU PITO YOU PATO ANDBUT OF
MICO CU PITES BOOOO GUHA KISE YOUR KIS AND KIS DID KIS JUT SIX AT HOME.