Just to refresh everyone’s memory about what happened last week, three reputed mob soldiers were arrested in Florida for the February 2001 gangland-style murder of Gus Boulis, founder and one-time owner of Sun Cruz, the Florida casino boat line. Jack Abramoff and Adam Kidan muscled Boulis into selling them Sun Cruz. And it is for fraud in that acquisition that both were indicted last month.
That’s all known.
It’s also been a matter of public record for more than four years that around the time of Boulis’s murder, for no clear reason, Kidan paid roughly a quarter million dollars to one of those three men now under indictment for the crime. For that and other reasons, those of us who live in the world where gravity always pulls down and never up, can probably conclude that the cops believe Kidan’s are somehow dirty in this matter.
In any case, here’s the point I haven’t seen discussed at any length. That money did not come out of Kidan’s pocket. He may have authorized the payments. But those checks came from Sun Cruz itself, the company Kidan and Abramoff then co-owned.
Articles on this subject almost always throw in a line to the effect that no one suspects Abramoff himself of knowledge or involvement in Boulis’s death. And I know of little tangible to contradict that. But he was the co-owner, with Kidan, of the company which made the tainted payments. And Abramoff and Kidan were in pretty close and regular contact in how they used Sun Cruz’s money for the DC lobbying operations. At a minimum Abramoff might be able to shed some light on whether there is some innocent explanation for the money that went to the guy who’s been indicted for Boulis’s murder.
In any case, the a priori blanket exoneration does seem a bit more total than journalists would normally grant in such cases.
As far as I know, too, the local police investigating the crime have still failed in their efforts to get an interview with Abramoff to find out what he might know about Boulis’s death.
