A former Interior Department employee was sentenced to two years probation and fined $1,000 Tuesday for failing to report gifts he received from influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.
Roger Stillwell accepted hundreds of dollars worth of football and concert tickets from Abramoff, who at the time was lobbying for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Stillwell was with the Interior Department’s insular affairs office, which handles issues involving the island government.
“It was never my intention to deliberately violate the law, but clearly I did so, and I extend my sincerest apologies to this court,” Stillwell said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay handed down a relatively stiff penalty for the misdemeanor offense. Defense attorneys asked for six months probation and prosecutors did not oppose it because Stillwell cooperated in the Abramoff investigation….
Stillwell received four tickets to a Washington Redskins game and two tickets to a Simon and Garfunkel concert in 2003. The tickets had a face value of about $485 but prosecutors said they were worth about $2,300.
So what did Stillwell tell prosecutors? We’ll have to wait to find out. Long live the Abramoff scandal!
