home

Bob Ney Pleads Guilty to Felonies

By Jeralyn, Section
Posted on Fri Oct 13, 2006 at 09:35:56 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

Bump and Update: Ney appeared in court and entered his guilty pleas but is not resigning immediately. TPM Muckraker has Ney's full statement. He will be resigning in the next few weeks.

******
Original Post 12:35 am

Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney is set to plead guilty Friday in federal court to two five year felonies. Prosecutors will ask for a 27 month sentence. There's speculation he will resign from Congress at the hearing, to show remorse and acceptance of responsibility to the Judge.

Ney will be the first Congressman in the Jack Abramoff investigation to plead guilty.

Ney signed papers a month ago admitting to charges of conspiracy and making false statements, acknowledging that he had deprived the public of his honest services.

The Ohio congressman says he took tens of thousands of dollars worth of trips, sports tickets, campaign contributions, meals and casino chips in exchange for legislation and public statements supporting Abramoff's clients and a foreign businessman.

Ney recently went into alcohol treatment, which he blamed for his actions. As for others connected to the White House taken down in the Abramoff scandal, there's Karl Rove aide Susan Ralston and White House aide David Safavian:

Ney's court appearance comes one week after a top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove resigned amid questions over her links to Abramoff. Susan Ralston left after a House committee reported that she apparently accepted tickets to sporting events from Abramoff without reimbursing him. The House committee report, which summarized an investigation of links between Abramoff and the White House, cited 485 contacts between the lobbyist and his associates with the Bush White House. The tally was based on records House investigators obtained from 13 of 24 Abramoff clients.

In June, former White House official David Safavian, who had been the Bush administration's top procurement official, was convicted of covering up his dealings with Abramoff. He is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 27.

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft