The Daily Background

As rumored and expected, Bob Ney has plead guilty early this morning to three counts…. AP just sent a writeup out:

Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, pleaded guilty Friday to making false statements and conspiracy to commit fraud and violating post-employment restrictions for former congressional aides.

Update soon…

By the way, I beat the NYT on this.
Update: All right. It’s kind of hard to predict what’s next, since there was no period where Ney was ever (publicly) indicted before he plead guilty. But, expect this to make kind of big news though.

Ney will be cooperating with prosecutors, possibly to get other public officials in trouble in connection with the Abramoff scandal. Apparently Ney agreed to plead on Wednesday. According to another writeup:

Now he faces up to 10 years in prison. The Justice Department said prosecutors will recommend that he serve 27 months based on federal sentencing guidelines. Ney became the first lawmaker to admit wrongdoing in the election-year investigation.

The conspiracy charge by the way is a mail/wire fraud, same as Abramoff plead guilty to. Twenty seven months is two and a quarter years.

On a related note, Reuters reports on the outcome of the special primary to replace Ney on the Republican ticket. If Ney had waited one more day to give up his race for re-election, Republicans would have had to launch a tricky write-in campaign.

Ohio Republicans picked state Sen. Joy Padgett on Thursday to replace U.S. Rep. Bob Ney on the ballot in November, a candidate party leaders said would be free of the corruption scandal that had dogged Ney. Republicans said the move will help them to hold onto the seat in the November 7 congressional elections where Padgett will face Democrat Zack Space.

Update: Ney reportedly faces a half-million dollar fine in addition to prison time. He has also admitted a problem with alcohol and says he will be getting treatment

Filed under: Bob Ney, Abramoff Scandal, Z-TDB Blog