Former Ney Aide Pleads Guilty to Corruption

Court documents filed Monday by federal prosecutors said Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) repeatedly took official action either for or at the request of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff in return for trips, tickets, meals and other gratuities.

The allegations were detailed as part of a guilty plea to corruption charges by Neil G. Volz, a former top aide to the Ohio lawmaker. Though the filings do not charge Ney with a crime, major portions of the plea agreement spell out in new detail how prosecutors say the former aide got the congressman to do Abramoff’s bidding.

Prosecutors said Volz, Abramoff and their colleagues would work out what they wanted Ney to do or say, then Volz would tell Ney and the congressman did what they asked. This allegedly included work on legislation sought or opposed by Abramoff clients.

Volz, who worked under Ney for seven years before taking a job with Abramoff, took illegal gifts while he was a federal employee. Once Volz became a lobbyist, prosecutors said, he gave illegal gifts to Ney and his former colleagues.

The plea agreement refers only to a “Representative #1,” but Ney’s lawyers acknowledge that it is their client.

If indicted, Ney would be the first member of Congress charged in the lobbying scandal that has engulfed Capitol Hill.

Ney, who repeatedly has denied any wrongdoing, issued a statement Monday saying that Volz was “under tremendous pressure from the government” and that he was “saddened” at the day’s developments.

Ney’s press secretary, Brian Walsh, said the congressman “has said from Day One that he has done absolutely nothing illegal” and that he would continue his campaign for reelection. Ney has maintained that he was duped by Abramoff.

Ney’s lawyers said Monday that he had not taken any official action in return for bribes or gratuities. Many of the charges, said lawyer Mark Tuohey, “are simply not true.”

“If Neil [Volz] crossed an ethical line, he did so without Congressman Ney’s knowledge,” Walsh said.

In court documents filed Monday, however, prosecutors cited instances in which Volz admitted to soliciting bribes or taking illegal trips with Ney’s “knowledge and consent.”

For instance, Volz said, while he worked for Ney he asked lobbyist Tony C. Rudy to get him four tickets to a U2 concert. Rudy, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and bribery charges.

Volz, Ney’s former communications director, was serving as staff director to a committee the lawmaker chaired when he went to work for Abramoff in early 2002. Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, bribery and related tax charges, is awaiting sentencing pending the ongoing investigation.

Under his plea deal, Volz, 35, admitted to conspiring to corruptly influence a public official and to violating a law barring congressional aides from lobbying their former employers within a year of leaving public office. Though he could face a five-year prison term, he is likely to get a much lesser term if he continues to cooperate with federal investigators.

The plea deal was formalized Monday before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, the same judge who has presided over three related plea agreements -- including Abramoff’s.

In addition to a previously disclosed Ney golfing trip to Scotland, the plea agreement states that Volz, Abramoff and others arranged for Ney to take a trip to a Lake George resort in New York in 2003, eat free at Abramoff’s restaurants and have access to luxury suites at sporting events and concerts.

“Representative #1 [Ney] and others performed official acts for or at the behest of Abramoff and others, which were motivated in part by things of value received,” the plea documents said.

Walsh said the Lake George trip was an outing with personal friends “for which everyone paid their shares, and [Ney] has eyewitnesses to prove that claim.” Ney previously has said he believed the Scotland trip was properly paid for by a nonprofit, not Abramoff’s clients.

Volz conveyed Abramoff’s requests for official action by the congressman on numerous occasions, prosecutors say, including Aug. 14, 2002, when Volz told Ney “what Abramoff wanted him to say” in an upcoming meeting with representatives of an Indian tribe client.

And again on Oct. 8, 2002, Volz told Ney “what Abramoff wanted [Ney] to say in a telephone conversation” with tribal representatives who sought approval of a gaming amendment Ney had agreed to insert in a pending bill, the plea deal said.

Ney, prosecutors said, took a number of previously undisclosed actions at his former aide’s urging -- including signing a letter opposing a commission on Indian gaming, assisting Abramoff in getting federal property for a private school and assisting the Agua Caliente, a California tribal client of Abramoff’s.

He also agreed to co-sign a letter seeking support for awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to one of Abramoff’s clients.

Other new details include a meeting prosecutors say Ney held with the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 2003 -- an apparent reference to then-HUD Secretary Mel Martinez -- to assist an Abramoff client seeking federal property. The congressman also used his office to expedite the visa application of one of Abramoff’s Russian clients, the plea agreement said.