WASHINGTON - A former top White House official was sentenced yesterday to a year and a day in federal prison for obstructing justice and lying to officials and investigators about a lavish golf trip to Scotland and his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Btw, Jack, what was Mohammed Atta doing on your casino ship a month BEFORE 9-11?
Related: David Safavian has ties to terror organizations
It was the second time that David H. Safavian, a former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, was sentenced by US District Judge Paul Friedman on a conviction stemming from a federal probe into Abramoff’s illicit lobbying activities. In 2006, Friedman sentenced Safavian to 18 months in prison, but an appeals court threw out the underlying conviction last year. Prosecutors elected to retry Safavian. In December, the 42-year-old was convicted on charges of lying to a GSA ethics officer, obstructing a GSA investigation into the 2002 golf trip, and lying on financial disclosure forms about its costs. He was also convicted of making false statements to an FBI agent. He was acquitted of lying to a Senate committee.
Safavian and his wife, Jennifer, begged Friedman for leniency during a hearing yesterday, saying their family had suffered enough without having to endure a prison sentence. They are bankrupt, Safavian will lose his law license, and he will be barred from contracting with the government, they said.
Awww, poor lying crook!
Prosecutors urged Friedman to impose prison time, saying Safavian had “lied repeatedly’’ to officials and investigators from 2002 through 2005. “All of these lies were premeditated and designed to keep his unethical relationship with Jack Abramoff from becoming public,’’ they wrote in court papers.
Among other things!
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