Ex-Aide To Bush Found Guilty

A federal judge in Miami yesterday granted Abramoff and Kidan three more months of freedom before they must begin prison terms for fraud convictions in a separate case involving the purchase of a cruise-ship line. This will give the two more time to cooperate with investigations into official corruption in Washington and into the 2001 slaying in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., of businessman Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, who was killed a few months after he sold SunCruz Casinos to the pair.

Days before his arrest in September, Safavian had resigned as the White House's chief procurement policy officer, a job he got after leaving the GSA. He had worked earlier as a lobbyist for Abramoff and also as a congressional aide.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges and, in a surprise move, took the stand in his defense. His wife, Jennifer, also testified. Safavian contended that he was a friend and not a business associate of Abramoff's, that he was forthright with federal investigators, and that Abramoff was not engaged in formal business dealings with the GSA because he was not a contractor with the agency.

But prosecutors Peter Zeidenberg and Nathaniel B. Edmonds introduced dozens of e-mails between Safavian and Abramoff to show the jury that Abramoff sought two government properties Safavian's agency oversaw while offering him favors, including the overseas trip. They did not call Abramoff to testify.

In mid-2002, Safavian joined the GSA, which oversees the purchase and leasing of the federal government's billions of dollars in property around the country. Soon after he arrived at the agency, he and Abramoff began e-mailing each other and exchanging information and strategic advice about how to buy or lease the GSA properties.

One was a parcel of land in Montgomery County, on which Abramoff hoped to situate a Jewish high school he supported. The second was the Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Abramoff wanted to convert the historic but underused structure into a luxury hotel for an Indian tribe client.

At the same time, Safavian and Abramoff kept in constant social contact -- on the local golf links and at Abramoff's Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant, Signatures. Safavian also agreed to attend the junket to St. Andrews in Scotland, the birthplace of golf, which was arranged by Abramoff.

In addition to Volz, Ney and Safavian, the trip, via a chartered Gulfstream II jet, included two Ney aides and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed -- a business associate and longtime friend of Abramoff's.

Before that trip in August 2002, Safavian asked the GSA ethics office whether he could accept the gift of airfare without breaching the agency's ethics code. In an e-mail requesting the ruling, Safavian called Abramoff a friend and a lobbyist "but one that has no business before GSA (he does all of this work on Capitol Hill)."

The office replied that Safavian could accept the airfare. Nonetheless, Safavian wrote Abramoff a check for $3,100 before the journey began, an amount that Safavian contended throughout the trial was enough to cover the entire cost of the trip.

Zeidenberg and Edmonds derided that assertion. They presented evidence that the check barely paid one-fifth of the real expense: Hotel rooms ran between $400 and $500 a night, greens fees for golf at the fabled St. Andrews were $400 per game, and rounds of drinks in Scotland cost $100 each. Chartering the jet, for nine passengers, cost at least $91,000.