Ex-Abramoff aide gets 2 months, fine for tax evasion, obstruction
WASHINGTON — Italia Federici, who served as Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s conduit to the top ranks of the Interior Department, was sentenced Friday to two months in a halfway house during a day in court that touched on her romantic liaisons, tax evasion and conduct before the Senate.
Federici, 38, the onetime president of a Republican environmental group, had pleaded guilty to evading taxes and obstructing the Senate’s investigation of Abramoff’s lobbying for Indian tribes.
Prosecutors suggested that she receive home detention instead of incarceration because of her cooperation with the ongoing investigation into the Abramoff scandal.
But U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle rejected their recommendations, insisting that Federici serve some time, in part as an example to others. She gave Federici 60 days in a halfway house plus four years of probation, and ordered her to pay $77,243 in restitution.
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