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Suncruz

Jack Abramoff purchased SunCruz with partner Adam Kidan in 2000. Both have since been indicted on charges stemming from the acquisition.

Gus Boulis started SunCruz casinos in 1994. The company provided "cruises to nowhere" in which Florida's state gambling laws were avoided by taking gamblers out into international waters. Florida officials, frustrated by the company's avoidance of state gambling laws and fed up with complaints about drunken and rowdy crowds disembarking in SunCruz ports, were eager shut SunCruz down. In 1999, they finally charged Boulis with violations of the Shipping Act and forced him to sell the company. The state agreed to keep Boulis' legal troubles secret so that he would have a fair bargaining position when he sold.

Boulis' lawyer, Art Dimopolous, worked with Abramoff at Preston Gates, and Abramoff suggested Adam Kidan would be interested in purchasing the company. Abramoff did not disclose to Preston Gates that he would be partnering with Kidan in the purchase. Abramoff, Kidan, and former Reagan administration official Ben Waldman bought the company in 2000. Abramoff and Kidan would each have a 40% stake the company, with Waldman taking 10% and Boulis maintaining 10%. The deal closed in September 2000.

Kidan and Boulis clashed, sometimes violently, over the way SunCruz was being run, and Boulis was assassinated behind the wheel of his car in February 2001. SunCruz declared bankruptcy four months after Boulis died, with Abramoff and Kidan relinquishing their stake in the company to the Boulis estate in exchange for a release from their debts and liabilities with the company. It is currently operating under new ownership.

Key Points:

Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) put statements in the Congressional Record regarding the sale and operation of SunCruz.

In March 2000, after Boulis tried to add conditions to the SunCruz sale that were unfavorable to Abramoff and Kidan, Ney went on the Congressional Record denouncing Boulis and SunCruz, saying "Mr. Speaker, how SunCruz Casinos and Gus Boulis conduct themselves with regard to Florida laws is very unnerving." Ney made the statements at the request of newly minted Abramoff-hire Michael Scanlon in exchange for Abramoff largesse, according to Abramoff's plea agreement. In addition to the gifts Ney received from Abramoff, SunCruz casinos made a $10,000 donation to the NRCC in Ney's name weeks after the sale was complete.

The men arrested for Boulis' murder were on SunCruz’s payroll.

James "Pudgy" Fiorillo, Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari and Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello, a former bookkeeper for the Gambino crime family, were arrested for the Boulis murder in September 2005. Moscatiello had received $145,000 in payments from SunCruz, then under Abramoff and Kidan's control, for what Kidan described as catering services, consulting, and site inspections, though there is no evidence such services were rendered. Ferrari's company, Moon Over Miami Beach, received $95,000 in payments from SunCruz for "surveillance."

Abramoff and Kidan were indicted in association with the SunCruz purchase.

Kidan and Abramoff secured bank loans to help cover the $147.5 million purchase price of SunCruz by guaranteeing $23 million of their own money as collateral. But Kidan and Abramoff never came through with that $23 million. They convinced SunCruz owner Gus Boulis to take promissory notes instead and faked a wire transfer to demonstrate to the bank that they had made the payment. Kidan was indicted for this along with Abramoff in August 2005.

SunCruz was used to curry favor with Capitol staffers.

In January 2001, Abramoff leased a corporate jet and sent Tim Berry, a DeLay staffer, Tony Rudy, and two Conrad Burns (R-MT) staffers to Florida to watch the Super Bowl and then spend a night gambling on a SunCruz ship.

Research by Ryan Chiachiere

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