Abramoff's High School Basketball Connection

When Robert Coughlin pleaded guilty last week to a corruption charge stemming from the Jack Abramoff scandal, prosecutors filed a statement of offense replete with alleged acts of misconduct. Some of the favors Coughlin did for Kevin Ring, an Abramoff lobbyist, were on a grand scale. But others were simply baffling — like Abramoff’s personal interest in lining up approval for student visas.

Sam Whitehill, a former teacher at the Eshkol Academy, Abramoff’s Jewish boys school in Maryland, has the answer: Abramoff was importing Israeli ringers to juice up the school basketball team.

The lobbyist took youth sports very seriously, Whitehill says, and wanted to import the athletes to boost Eshkol’s lackluster sports program. Whitehill, who spent time with the Israeli boys because he spoke fluent Hebrew, says they were the only foreign students in Eshkol's two-year run.

All Coughlin did was forward the lobbyists' request to colleagues, but it was a big deal at the time: “I cannot thank you enough for helping on this,” Abramoff lobbyist Kevin Ring wrote in a 2003 e-mail cited by prosecutors as evidence of Coughlin’s official misconduct. “[Abramoff] was very appreciative. You really helped me out.”

Abramoff wasn’t the only person involved with basketball on the mind: Coughlin responded to the thank you note by hitting up Ring for eight floor seats to a Washington Wizards game.

In hindsight, the swap of favors didn’t do anybody much good. The Wizards tix were used by prosecutors as proof that Coughlin had used his position for personal gain. And the ringers didn’t work out for Abramoff’s purposes, either, says Whitehill, who eventually sued the lobbyist over unpaid wages.

“They weren’t especially good,” he says of the players. “That was the ironic thing about it — they were pretty crummy.”

Comments

[Peter Scott]

....Some of the favors Coughlin did for Kevin Ring, an Abramoff lobbyist, were on a grand scale."....

This entire thing is so tickey-tack that it makes one wonder what the DOJ is thinking.
Who are they really after??? Coughlin and Ring really didn't commit any crimes that would warrant all this fuss. Dinner, drinks, and sports tickets? Wow major crimes. Check out McCain if you want to see major crimes. Commerce Comm.?? "Keating 7"