Former associate of Gale Norton faces charges
Federici accused of tax evasion and obstruction
M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News
Published June 7, 2007 at midnight
A one-time associate of former Interior Secretary Gale Norton faces charges of tax evasion and obstruction of U.S. Senate proceedings in a case related to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
Italia Federici, who once worked for Norton's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in Colorado in 1996, is accused of acting as a "conduit" to relay information between Abramoff and the man who was once Norton's chief deputy, J. Steve Griles, according to court records released Wednesday.
Griles pleaded guilty in March to a felony charge of obstructing justice. He admitted that he lied to Senate investigators about his relationship with convicted lobbyist Abramoff, who repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at Interior on behalf of Abramoff's American Indian tribal clients.
Abramoff's tribal clients reportedly donated about $500,000 to an organization Federici founded in Colorado in the late 1990s, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy.
Prosecutors allege that, in lieu of a salary, Federici took payments directly out of CREA accounts and failed to pay $77,243 in taxes on $233,955 she received from 2001 to 2003, before the Department of Justice and the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee began investigations into Abramoff's efforts to buy influence.
In past interviews and committee testimony, Federici denied any wrongdoing, saying the contributions to CREA were for legitimate issue-advocacy work.
However, in the charging document, prosecutors accuse Federici of trying to "knowingly and corruptly influence, obstruct and impede" the Senate committee's investigation through "a series of materially false and fictitious declarations."
Senators on the committee have said they found no evidence that Norton, a one time Colorado attorney general and lieutenant governor, did anything improper.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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