Corruption in the United States

1
Corruption in the United States

• Introduction
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Public Integrity Section of Dept. of Justice
• Overview
• Jack Abramoff
• U.S. Congressman Bob Ney

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Start of Investigation

• February 2004 Washington Post Article
• Abramoff Scanlon defrauded Native American
  Indian Tribal Clients
• Common ways FBI initiates investigations
• Public Source Documents
• Confidential Human Sources

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Start of Investigation Jack Abramoff
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Start of Investigation - Lobbying

• A Lobbyist hired to influence legislators on
  behalf of a particular industry, group, or
  individual
• Lobbying Disclosure Act lobbyists must register
  with Congress

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Start of Investigation - Lobbying

• Native American Tribal Clients
• Law allows Native American Tribes to operate
  casinos
• Clients wanted to open their own casinos or
  prevent competitor casinos from opening

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Start of Investigation - Allegations

• Abramoff committed fraud on his clients
• Abramoff corrupted public officials by giving
  things of value (trips, tickets, meals, and
  drinks) in return for official action

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Start of Investigation Public Officials
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Investigative Team

• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Plenary Jurisdiction
• Lead Agency
• Department of Interior Inspector General
• Jurisdiction over corruption of Interior
  Department Officials
• Access to witnesses on Native American Indian
  Reservations

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Investigative Team(continued)

• IRS Criminal Investigation
• Jurisdiction over Tax Crimes
• IRS agents follow the money

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Building the Case

• Public Source Documents

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Building the Case

• Public Source Documents
• Non-public source documents
• Emails

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Building the Case

• Public Source Documents
• Non-public source documents
• Emails
• Financial records maintained by business

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Building the Case

• Public Source Documents
• Non-public source documents
• Emails
• Financial records maintained by business
• Restaurant Point of Sale System
• Airline and Frequent Flyer Records

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Building the Case(continued)

• Witness Interviews
• Other techniques wiretaps and search warrants
• Cooperating Witnesses and consensual recordings
• Staffer
• Prosecutorial discretion

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Building the Case(continued recordings)

• Building trust with cooperating witness
• Convincing cooperating witness to make recordings
• Getting cooperating witness invested in success
  of recordings

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Building the Case(continued recordings)

• Script or no script.
• Decision Trees.
• Dont trust the equipment redundancy, belt and
  suspenders.
• Square Peg vs Round Hole test.

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Building the Case(continued recordings)

• Results

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Building the Case(witness interviews plea
agreements)

• Plea Agreements - Will Heaton
• Pros for the Government
• quick resolution without a trial
• Heaton must cooperate
• Pros for Heaton
• avoid costly defense
• lower jail sentence through cooperation
• Coordination required
• Attorneys evaluate whether the government has
  enough evidence to pursue plea agreement
• Agents work to firm up weak areas of proof to
  ensure that government can pursue plea agreement
• Attorneys negotiate agreement and Agents debrief
  Heaton

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Building the Case(witness interviews - plea
agreements)

• Corruption Charges Bribery (15 years) or Honest
  Services Fraud (20 years)
• False Statements (5 years)
• False Financial Disclosure Forms
• Conspiracy (5 years)
• Conflict of Interest Charges
• Aiding and abetting one-year ban violations (5
  years)

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Building the Case(witness interviews - continued)

• Actual Charges

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Building the Case(plea agreements - benefits)

• Made a consensual recording of Ney
• Provided information known only to Heaton and Ney
• Broke Neys will to fight charges
• Other targets have pled guilty and are cooperating

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Building the Case(plea agreements - benefits)

• Other witnesses more likely to tell the truth
• Public has confidence that investigation is being
  handled appropriately
• Behavior of others changes
• Trips
• Ethics Rules

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