hatfield589

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer
Sun Aug 14, 4:38 PM ET

YSLETA DEL SUR PUEBLO, Texas - Jose Lopez Jr. had to start working as a tribal dancer at age 9, in part to make money for his struggling family.

Then, in the mid-1990s his Indian tribe, the Tiguas, opened the Speaking Rock casino in West Texas, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The tribe went from bust to boom — and back to bust. Fortunes swung on gambling's lure and, tribe members contend, died through the machinations of powerful Washington insiders.

Now lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associate Michael Scanlon are at the center of a U.S. Senate investigation into whether they schemed to swindle six Indian tribes with casinos, including the Tiguas, with promises of Washington favors.

The Tiguas paid the men to head an effort to reopen their casino after state officials had the operation shut down in 2002. Tribal Governor Arturo Senclair said the Tiguas didn't know Abramoff and Scanlon, working on behalf of competing casinos, apparently were also behind the effort to close their casino.

The Tiguas' hope of gambling fortunes began with high stakes bingo, followed by slot machines. Soon, the 24-hour operation attracted 100,000 players monthly, earning the tribe about $60 million annually.

"I went from ... dirt poor to being at the height," said Lopez, now 20.

In 2002, a federal court agreed with then-Attorney General John Cornyn that the casino violated Texas' limited gambling laws and shut it down. Tribal officials, desperate to reopen their one source of wealth, turned to Abramoff and Scanlon.

Senclair, who took office after the tribe's dealings with Abramoff, said the tribe was told to pay $4.2 million to Scanlon, who would head the effort to reopen the casino.

The Tiguas also were instructed to donate money to a number of Republican candidates or causes. Since 2000, the tribe has made $175,000 in political contributions, according to a study by PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks political fund-raising and spending.

All but $1,000 of that money was donated in 2002, the same year the tribe began dealing with Abramoff. The vast majority of the donations went to Republican campaigns or groups.

Senclair has provided the investigating Senate committee with copies of dozens of e-mails that he said showed a plan by Abramoff, Scanlon and others to close the Tiguas' casino, and then solicit money from the tribe in an effort to reopen it.

In hundreds of e-mails and other documents released by the committee in June, Abramoff and several associates discuss just how much money they will get from their dealings with the casino-operating tribes and being "creative" with billing hours.

In some messages, Abramoff refers to tribe officials as monkeys, morons, and troglodytes, a term for cave dwellers.

Just days before the casino closed on Feb. 11, 2002, Abramoff and Scanlon traded jubilant e-mails alluding to their future dealings with the tribe.

"Fire up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso!!" Abramoff wrote to Scanlon in a February 6, 2002 note.

Scanlon replied six minutes later saying, "I want all their MONEY!!!"

The Tiguas would still be in business had Abramoff and Scanlon not pressured Texas authorities to close Speaking Rock, Senclair said.

Abramoff's associates, working on behalf of tribes in neighboring states who wanted to curb competition, urged social conservatives, including fundamentalist ministers, to complain about the Texas casino, Senclair said.

Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum called the allegations baseless.

"The Tigua were operating a casino in Texas without the proper legal authority and therefore the casino was shut down by then-Gov. George W. Bush and his Attorney General (now U.S. Sen.) John Cornyn," Blum wrote in an e-mail statement to The Associated Press in late July.

"Mr. Abramoff did not shut down this illegal casino. Rather, Mr. Abramoff's work on behalf of his client, the Louisiana Coushattas, was to prevent a similar illegal casino from being operated by another Coushatta tribe in Texas, not the Tiguas."

Abramoff was arrested Thursday after being indicted on federal fraud charges in connection with a deal to buy casino boats in Florida.

More than 900 jobs have been lost at the Tigua casino, which is now quiet except for the occasional winner's bell from entertainment machines that replaced about 1,500 slot machines. The new games award points later traded for merchandise.

"It's like a pizza parlor," Senclair said derisively.

The tribe got back about half of the money it paid Abramoff and Scanlon in a settlement last year. That money, along with other savings, will help the Tiguas survive for at least another two years, Senclair said.

Lopez has decided that college is now his only hope. He enrolled at El Paso Community College — the first in his family to go to college — and hopes to become a dentist.

"The way things are going right now," Lopez said, "I honestly think the best thing for me to do is leave."

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Blackbear

I just want to throttle those two guys!!! Everytime I read about them it infuriates me!! Can't you just see them just crusin in a limo down an alleyway dangling food from fishing rods in front of starving children and laughing as they keep it just out of their reach? That's how I picture them! I hope completely that these two get the maximum sentance that can be given!

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