WASHINGTON — Jack Abramoff, the once powerful lobbyist at the heart of a far-reaching political corruption scandal, was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday by a judge who said the case had shattered the public’s confidence in government.
Abramoff, who fought back tears as he declared himself a broken man, appeared crestfallen as the judge handed down a sentence lengthier than prosecutors had sought.
Over the past three years, Abramoff has come to symbolize corruption and the secret deals cut between lobbyists and politicians in back rooms or on golf courses or private jets. The scandal shook Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill and contributed to the Republicans’ loss of Congress in 2006.
“I come before you as a broken man,” Abramoff said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. “I’m not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption.”
He added later that, “My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh and the title of a scandal.”
Already two years into a prison term from a separate case in Florida, Abramoff, 49, will have spent about six years in prison by the time he is released, far longer than he and his attorneys expected for a man who became the key FBI witness in his own corruption case.
With Abramoff’s help, the Justice Department has won corruption convictions against former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles and several top Capitol Hill aides.
Huvelle could have sent Abramoff to prison for 11 years for conspiring to defraud the U.S., corrupting public officials and defrauding his clients, but she but showed leniency because of his work with the FBI. She rejected, however, proposals to reduce the sentence even further by giving Abramoff credit for the time he already has spent in prison on a fraudulent casino deal in Florida.
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