Todd Boulanger

Boulanger Pleads Guilty

Zachary Roth | January 30, 2009, 5:13PM

Goodbye Savile Row, hello orange jumpsuit.

Todd Boulanger, the fashion-forward former lobbyist and Jack Abramoff crony who was indicted earlier this week for bribing government aides, has pleaded guilty, reports the Associated Press.

Boulanger has been cooperating with the investigation, according to his lawyer. Under the terms of his plea deal, prosecutors are recommending that he spend 18-24 months in prison, with reduced time if he continues to cooperate.

Boulanger was an aide to Sen. Bob Smith, a New Hampshire GOPer, before working with Abramoff as a lobbyist.

Court documents suggested that Boulanger and other members of Team Abramoff had schemed to provide a staffer to Mississippi senator Thad Cochran with tickets for concerts, ice skating, and other events.

Separate court records suggested that Boulanger also helped arrange a an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2003 World Series for Trevor Blackann, a former aide to Missouri senator Kit Bond. In November, Blackann pleaded guilty to making false statements on his tax returns in an effort to conceal the gift.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (14)
Topics: Jack Abramoff, Lobbyists, Todd Boulanger

Interior Department

Interior To Take Another Look At Griles-Abramoff Ties?

Zachary Roth | January 29, 2009, 6:19PM

We noted earlier today that the new Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, yesterday said he wanted to re-open investigations into ethical lapses at the department under Bush. And he specifically mentioned, among other scandals, the Steven Griles affair, in which the department's number two official was convicted in connection to his ties to super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the highest-ranking administration official sentenced in the sprawling Abramoff probe.

So it's worth doing a quick refresher on what happened there.

In a nutshell, as we put it in 2007 before Griles was sentenced, he served for years as Abramoff's man at Interior. He provided the lobbyist with information that was useful to his tribal clients -- in return getting favors not for himself, but for his stable of girlfriends.

Abramoff gave $500,000 to a conservative group run by one of them, Italia Federici, a former aide to Interior Secretary Gail Norton. It was through Federici that Abramoff first gained access to Griles. Abramoff also interviewed two other Griles gal-pals for possible jobs. And Griles lied about all this to a Senate committee.

In 2007, Griles pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Given the evidence against Griles and Federici, there was speculation that former Norton, who was cozy throughout her career with mining, logging and drilling interests, might also be of interest to investigators. (Abramoff once described Federici's group as "my access to Norton"). So if the Griles affair is indeed re-investigated, it'll certainly be worth watching where things lead.

We've put in a call to the department to get more specifics on what exactly Salazar might want to look at, and will let you know what we find out...

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)
Topics: Interior Department, Jack Abramoff, Lobbyists

Interior Department

Interior Officials Could Still Face Prosecution For Ethical Misconduct

Zachary Roth | January 29, 2009, 1:08PM

The list of Bush administration officials who could now face prosecution for their misdeeds over the last eight years doesn't only include those who authorized harsh tactics in the War on Terror.

Yesterday, Ken Salazar, the Interior Secretary, said at a White House briefing that he planned to reopen probes into a web of ethical misconduct at the department's Minerals Management Service, which included employees accepting gifts from, and having sex with, representatives of the oil and gas companies they were supposed to be regulating.

Reports by the department's Inspector General recommended that two MMS managers implicated in the scandal be prosecuted. But the Bush Justice Department declined to bring charges, a decision that the IG, Earl Devaney, publicly criticized, telling a congressional committee last September: ''I would have liked a more aggressive approach, and I would have liked to have seen some other people prosecuted here.''

Devaney also complained during his testimony that his report had been incomplete because Chevron -- one of the companies charged with giving gifts to the staffers -- had hired lawyers for six employees implicated in the scandal who later refused to cooperate with the IG' investigation.

One of those who escaped prosecution was Greg Smith, who ran the Denver office of MMS's Royalty in Kind (RIK) program, in which the government forgoes royalties and takes a share of the oil and gas for resale instead. Smith was accused in the reports -- including one special report focused on him -- of coercing two subordinates into sex, doing cocaine with a subordinate, suggesting to other employees that they should lie to investigators, and taking $30,000 from a private company for marketing its services to oil and gas companies.

One employee told investigators that "Smith directed her to purchase cocaine for him during normal MMS business hours, and Smith used the term "office supplies" when discussing cocaine while at work."

Here's another good excerpt:

The RIK employee recalled that on one occasion in late 2004, Smith telephoned her repeatedly asking for drugs. She said she provided cocaine to him early that evening, but he continued to call her. Eventually, she said, Smith traveled to her house and wanted her to have sex with him. She said he also asked her if she had more cocaine, and she stated that she did not but that someone who was staying with her might. She said Smith obtained crystal methamphetamine from one of these individuals and she watched him snort it off the toaster oven in her kitchen. The RIK employee also said she and Smith engaged in oral sex that evening.

The other official who Devaney recommended prosecuting is accused of less tabloid friendly -- but equally serious -- misdeeds.

Lucy Dennet, a top official of the Minerals Revenue Management office in Washington DC, is accused of helping another MMS employee, Jimmy Mayberry, to create a lucrative MMS contract that benefited him after he left MMS. Mayberry and another former MMS employee, Milton Dial, have already pleaded guilty to creating the deal. Mayberry faces up to five years in prison.

One of the IG reports found:

In the matter involving Ms. Dennet, Mr. Mayberry and Milton Dial, the results of this investigation paint a disturbing picture of three Senior Executives who were good friends, and who remained calculatedly ignorant of the rules governing post-employment restrictions, conflicts of interest and Federal Acquisition Regulations to ensure that two lucrative MMS contracts would be awarded to the company created by Mr. Mayberry - Federal Business Solutions - and later joined by Mr. Dial. Ms. Dennet manipulated the contracting process from the start. She worked directly with the contracting officer, personally participated on the evaluation team for both contracts, asked for an increase to the first contract amount, and had Mayberry prepare the justification for the contract increase. Ms. Dennet also appears to have shared with Mr. Mayberry the Key Qualification criteria upon which bidders would be judged, two weeks before bid proposals on the first contract were due.

So it looks like Smith and Dennet may not be out of the woods yet.

Salazar also suggested that he'd re-open the investigation into the activities of Steven Griles, the former Deputy Interior Secretary who was convicted of obstructing justice in connection with the Jack Abramoff investigation. More on that to come...

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (16)
Topics: Interior Department, Jack Abramoff, Sex, Steven Griles

Jack Abramoff

Another Member of Team Abramoff Charged

Zachary Roth | January 29, 2009, 9:09AM

At last, the bell has tolled for Todd Boulanger.

In November, he quit his job as a lobbyist at Cassidy and Associates, amid the growing likelihood that he'd be charged in Jack Abramoff's corruption scheme.

And now he has been.

The Associated Press reports:

The government says Todd Boulanger gave government aides "a stream of things of value," including all-expense-paid travel, tickets to professional sports and concerts and nights out at expensive restaurants, to reward and influence actions that would benefit his clients. He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

One of those aides, it appears, was Trevor Blackann, a former staffer for Missouri Republicans Roy Blunt and Kit Bond, who pleaded guilty last fall to having accepted an all-expenses paid trip to the 2003 World Series -- including limousine service and a visit to a strip club -- arranged by Boulanger and another member of Team Abramoff, James Hirni.

But the Associated Press has identified another of the aides who accepted gifts from Boulanger: Ann Copland, a former staffer for Sen. Thad Cochran, the Mississippi Republican.

According to the documents, in 2002 Kevin Ring, another Abramoff crony who was charged last September, forwarded to Abramoff and Hirni an email from "Staffer E" (identified by AP as Copland), above which Ring wrote: "Wow ... We already told her she was fine on McCartney, ice skating and Green Day -- although we need to let her know how many tix she can have for each. Also, please review the other requests and let me know what we can do there."

Copland was hired by Mississippi Public Broadcasting in May 2008 as deputy executive director for education.

Before working with Abramoff, Boulanager was an aide to former Republican senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire.

It looks like Boulanger will plead guilty. The AP notes:

The charge was outlined in a federal court document known as an information -- a document normally filed as part of a plea deal.

So it's possible we could we see yet more charges filed in this long-running saga...

Late Update: Boulanger says he is cooperating with the investigation. His lawyer sent the following statement to AP:

Mr. Boulanger regrets this situation and is accepting responsibility for certain past conduct.

The circumstances underlying this situation arose more than five years ago, when Todd was employed by the law firm of Greenberg Traurig as a young lobbyist working under Jack Abramoff. Mr. Boulanger is cooperating with the Department of Justice in its investigation and looks forward to its complete and swift resolution.

PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)
Topics: Jack Abramoff, Lobbyists, Todd Boulanger, Trevor Blackann