Abramoff Homie Agrees to Tell All; Now Casting: Miamiana — The True Story

The plot has thickened and it’s not looking good for Jack Abramoff. His co-defendant on wire fraud and conspiracy charges, Adam Kidan, has agreed to sing like a budgie in exchange for a reduced sentence, from the 30 years he was facing down to 10.

The news seems to come as a surprise to Abramoff. South Florida Sun Sentinel:

Abramoff’s attorney, Neal Sonnett, said, “I hadn’t heard that” when asked Wednesday about Kidan’s intended plea. Sonnett said he wouldn’t comment until he received official notification. Abramoff has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Under the plea deal, Kidan would testify against Abramoff, his longtime friend and mentor.

We’ll understand all this better in the movie version, but basically it looks like Kidan and Abramoff, who met (I’m not making this up) at a young Republicans club while they were in college in Washington, cooked up a scheme to rip off the owner of the SunCruz gambling boats. Gus Boulis, a Greek immigrant, built the casino operation from money earned in his Miami Subs sandwich franchise but was now in need of a solid, upstanding American to look like the boss.

The loan fraud case can be traced to 1999 when the government forced Boulis to sell his controversial SunCruz gambling fleet by using an obscure shipping law prohibiting non-U.S. citizens from owning maritime interests. One of Boulis’ lawyers put him in touch with Abramoff to help find potential buyers.

And you know how Abramoff “helps” people. If not, just ask an Indian. Can you say, “double-dealing?” I thought you could. Abramoff and his homie, Kidan — who was nearly broke at the time — decided they could swing the multi-million dollar purchase.

Six months later, a company Kidan and Abramoff formed struck a deal to buy SunCruz for $147.5 million. The funding they obtained through Foothill Capital Corp. and Citadel Equity Fund required that they pay, and show proof they paid, $23 million of their own money to Boulis at the closing.

…since neither had enough money to qualify for the financing, they obtained short-term loans. In exchange, those lenders received a cut of SunCruz.

So now everybody including the soon-to-be-departed Boulis — who agreed to all the sleight of hand if he could continue to be a secret partner — has a piece of this deal. Two of the loan companies released a total of $60 million to Kidan and Abramoff, of which $23 million in cash should have gone to Gus Boulis. Boulis said it didn’t. While Kidan moved into the corner office at SunCruz, Boulis filed suit.

Enter Anthony Moscatiello. “Big Tony” as his friends in the Gotti crime syndicate call him, was hired by the now Kidan-run SunCruz as a catering consultant for $25,000 a month. (I’m still not making this up, but it’s going to provide some comic relief in the film. I can see whoever plays Moscatiello keeping a spatula in his desk drawer so he’ll look authentic when the detectives drop by to talk.) Kidan reportedly feared for his life, which is kind of funny, considering that Boulis is the one who ended up splattered all over his car in a hail of bullets.

Anyway, Big Tony put Kidan in touch with Little Tony Ferrari, whose Moon Over Miami umbrella company included a security service that employed one James “Pudgy” Fiorillo. Moscatiello, Ferrari, and Fiorillo are now charged with the Boulis hit. Kidan and Abramoff have not yet been charged in the murder, only on all the shenanigans leading to it. Abramoff is also up to his neck in fraud charges involving bilking Indian tribes when he was supposed to be their lobbyist, and Tom DeLay, the main recipient of Abramoff’s ill-gotten largesse, is up on money laundering charges in Texas.

I can’t wait to see how this movie ends.

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