Jack Abramoff

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Jack Abramoff (2004)

Jack A. Abramoff (born February 28, 1959 in Atlantic City , New Jersey ) is an American political lobbyist , Republican activist , businessman and fraudster who played a central role in a number of political scandals in the United States .

Life

Abramoff comes from a wealthy Jewish family. His father Frank Abramoff held a managerial position at the credit card company Diners Club . In 1969 he moved with his family to Beverly Hills , California . The family lived on Elm Drive, north of Santa Monica Boulevard. Abramoff attended Beverly Hills High School . He received his first religious education at Temple Emanuel , a reformed Jewish congregation in Beverly Hills. The film Anatevka , which Abramoff saw at the age of twelve, is said to have been the trigger for his later turn to Orthodox Judaism . From 1972 he visited the conservative synagogue Sinai Temple on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles at his own request .

Abramoff studied from 1977 at Brandeis University , where he graduated in 1981. In 1986 he graduated from the law faculty of the Georgetown University ( Georgetown University Law Center ) in Washington, DC a doctorate ( JD ) in trade law . As undergraduate at Brandeis University, he was chairman ( chairman ) of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans , the students as volunteers for the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan recruited the 1980th

After graduating from Brandeis University, Abramoff moved to Washington, DC, where he was elected Chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CNRC). He held this office from 1981 to 1985. Together with Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, he formed the College Republicans into an organization representing the right wing of the Republican Party. In 1982, an unsuccessful fundraising campaign run by Abramoff, Norquist, and Reed across the United States resulted in the College Republicans being exhausted .

In 1985 he joined the conservative, Reagan government-advocate Citizens for America ; this helped, among other things, Oliver North in supporting the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua .

In the late 1980s he went to Hollywood , where he worked as a film producer on two films . Abramoff was the head of the anti-communist lobbying organization International Freedom Foundation (IFF), which was founded in Washington, DC in 1986 and was "an instrument of political warfare against the enemies of apartheid, " according to Craig Williamson , a former major in the South African police force Williamsons directed Abramoff's Red Scorpion with Dolph Lundgren in the lead role. He had also written the script for this. The film has been criticized for its proximity to the apartheid regime and for its location (South West Africa, administered by South Africa ). Together with his brother he produced the films Red Scorpion (1988) and Red Scorpion 2 (1995). Abramoff spoke out on the Red Scorpion issue after the end of apartheid and stressed that the IFF was against apartheid. In the United States, he became known in the following years, especially as a political lobbyist; He did lobby work in particular for the large law firms Preston Gates & Ellis in Seattle and Greenberg Traurig in Miami .

Abramoff is married and has five children.

Legal proceedings

In January 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion in a lawsuit. Abramoff admitted to having given prominent MPs illicit donations; These included sums of money, invitations to golf trips, trips, tickets for sporting events, dinners and other perks.

A few days later, also in January 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty again in a second trial. Abramoff admitted in a Miami court that he had forged money transfers and documents to get a bank loan to finance casino ships. With the money, Abramoff, according to his own account, bought a fleet of casino ships in Florida .

In March 2006, Abramoff was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison by a Miami court. Abramoff had achieved a significant reduction in his sentence through his confession and an agreement on judgment . In June 2010 he was released after three and a half years.

After serving his sentence, Abramoff worked as a pizza maker in a pizzeria and fast food restaurant in Baltimore , Maryland .

Abramoff was considered the "godfather of the Republicans"; he was one of the "most colorful figures in the US capital". He had mainly represented the interests of Indian tribes who wanted to set up Indian casinos on their reservations ; however, he is said to have cheated the Indians out of their profits for years. As a result, David Savafian , the former chief of staff in the US procurement agency General Services Administration (GSA), was convicted in June 2006 , among other things, of false testimony and obstruction of justice .

The exposure of the Abramoff scandals and the subsequent condemnation of Abramoff had, according to the media , the potential to negatively affect the elections in the US congressional elections in November 2006 and the presidency of George W. Bush .

Movies

In May 2010, the documentary Casino Jack & The United States of Money (2010) about Abramoff's scandals was released in the United States .
A political satire filmed in the same year 2010 with Kevin Spacey as Abramoff is similarly titled Casino Jack , but it's a different film. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Casino Jack is smart, sassy and sardonic (PDF; 26.9 MB) in: The Canadian Jewish News of January 27, 2011
  2. ↑ a b c d Sympathy for the Devil? ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Jewish Journal of January 26, 2006  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jewishjournal.com
  3. ^ Bad for the Jews, Worse for the Christians ( Memento of September 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), in: Washington Monthly , April 2006.
  4. ^ A b Susan Schmidt / James V. Grimaldi, The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack Abramoff , The Washington Post December 29, 2005.
  5. ^ Interview with Allister Sparks at democracynow.com (English), accessed on August 17, 2012
  6. ^ First Off. . . - Los Angeles Times . Articles.latimes.com. January 20, 1988. Retrieved September 29, 2013.
  7. ^ First Off. . . - Los Angeles Times . Articles.latimes.com. January 20, 1988. Retrieved September 29, 2013.
  8. ↑ http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980427&slug=2747461
  9. ↑ Abramoff Lawyers Ask for Access to Tax Refund in: Washington Post, June 3, 2009
  10. ↑ a b US lobbyist pleads guilty , in: Der Spiegel, January 3, 2006.
  11. ↑ a b US lobbyist Abramoff again pleads guilty , in: Der Spiegel from January 5, 2006.
  12. ↑ a b Lobbyist Abramoff has to go to jail for years , in: Der Spiegel of March 30, 2006.
  13. ↑ From billionaire to pizza maker ntv of June 24, 2010
  14. ↑ From billionaire to pizza maker in: Süddeutsche Zeitung of June 24, 2010
  15. ↑ a b c From billionaire to pizza maker , in: Der Spiegel from June 24, 2010.
  16. ↑ a b US government officials found guilty , in: Der Spiegel, June 25, 2006.
  17. ↑ Casino Jack & The United States of Money (2010) in: New York Times, May 7, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Abramoff, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abramoff, Jack A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Republican Party activist and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Atlantic City , New Jersey