Lawmaker's Trips Abroad Questioned

29 May 2005 // They gathered for dinner in a posh London casino, known for its pricey membership fee and high-stakes table games.

At the table at Les Ambassadeurs were a Syrian-born businessman and multimillion-dollar gambler, known in London casinos as the Fat Man, and a former Florida airplane broker once convicted of income-tax evasion.

Joining them that night in February 2003 was a Republican congressman from rural eastern Ohio, Bob Ney.

His dinner companions were directors of a company called FN Aviation, which had paid his travel and hotel expenses.

A few months later, as part of a congressional visit to Sweden, Ney returned to the same casino for one night on a personal side trip. He reported winning $34,000 gambling.

Ney's trips to London have led to questions about the six-term lawmaker. The only certainty is that, in recent years, Ney has found himself in some interesting countries and engaged in private meetings with some intriguing people.

"A lot of congressmen take trips. A lot of congressmen do things with lobbyists," said Bill Allison, a spokesman for the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity in Washington. "In this instance, it's just the number of them and how many are questionable."

News organizations, such as The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and NBC News, have dug into Ney's foreign travels and close ties to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who reportedly is under investigation by the Justice Department and congressional committees. In addition, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal group, is trying to persuade a House member to file an ethics complaint against Ney.

Although Ney and his attorney have said he is not a target of investigations by the Justice Department or the House Ethics Committee, he has hired Mark Tuohey, an expensive Washington lawyer.

In the past, when asked about his association with Abramoff or his travels, Ney has tended to reply that he didn't know, he was duped or he cannot say anything because of national security.

Ney declined last week to be interviewed by The Dispatch, but spokesman Brian Walsh responded in writing to some of the paper's written questions.

"The congressman has not been contacted by the Justice Department but he has communicated verbally and in writing to the House Ethics Committee, informing them that if they have any questions at all about his travels that he would be more than happy to sit down and meet with them," Walsh said. "To date, they have not responded.

"It is very disappointing that instead of allowing the House ethics process to take its course and allow the congressman an opportunity to clear his name, The Dispatch is intent on regurgitating old news and making unsubstantiated allegations."

From a variety of published reports in the United States and Great Britain, public records, and interviews, these details about Ney have emerged:

* In 2000, he twice inserted comments into the Congressional Record backing a deal engineered by Abramoff to buy a Florida-based casino cruise line. Federal authorities are probing whether the Abramoff deal involved bank fraud, according to The Washington Post. Ney said he was "furious" that Mike Scanlon, an Abramoff associate who asked him to insert the comments, did not tell him more about the cruise line, the Post said. Walsh said that Ney never spoke to Scanlon again.

* In 2002, Ney flew by private jet to Scotland to play golf with Abramoff at fabled St. Andrews. Ney reported that a nonprofit organization sponsored the trip. But the Los Angeles Times quoted the head of the nonprofit as denying it paid the bill, leaving the possibility that Abramoff financed the trip, which would violate House rules. Ney says Abramoff told him the nonprofit financed the trip.

* That same year, Ney considered inserting a provision into an election-reform bill that would have helped the casino gaming interests of a Texas American Indian tribe represented by Abramoff. But Ney says he dropped the amendment when he learned that one of the Senate backers of the election-reform bill opposed it. Ney issued a statement last year saying he was duped by Abramoff into trying to fold the amendment in the bill. "That provision did not advance a single step in the legislative process and it was never put into even a draft version" of the bill, Walsh said.

Ney's trips to London in 2003 appear unrelated to Abramoff. In February that year, Ney met with Fouad al-Zayat, the Syrian-born businessman, and 67-year-old Nigel Winfield, a U.S. citizen who has lived in Florida.

NBC and public records indicate that Zayat has been one of the executives associated with FN Aviation. Zayat lists his nationality as Portuguese and reports a Cyprus address. He was an FN director when he met Ney in 2003. Sara Fouad Zayat, who also lists her address as Cyprus and was described by people answering the phone at Mr. Zayat's offices as his daughter, is a current FN director, according to records.

The Sunday Times of London in 2002 reported that "Former business partners say he (Zayat) has acted as an intermediary in a series of contracts for the supply of defense-related equipment in Cyprus and the Middle East." The Sunday Times also reported that a London casino sued Zayat, alleging he paid $3.6 million in gambling debts with checks that bounced.

Winfield, according to NBC and British public records, also is a director of FN. He is a convicted felon who reportedly owned racehorses, played a role in a scheme to defraud Elvis Presley in a jet lease deal and might have been an FBI informant on mobsters, according to records and published reports.

FN records list Winfield's address as in Cyprus. The Dispatch could not locate a phone number for either him or FN, and he could not be reached for comment. The Dispatch left repeated messages with Zayat's offices in London and Cyprus, but the calls were not returned.

Walsh said last week that Ney "had absolutely no idea that one of the individuals involved with this company had a criminal background." Walsh said that a Washington lawyer who has represented Winfield did not know of his criminal past. The lawyer could not be reached for comment.

In his 2003 travel-disclosure form, required of lawmakers who take privately funded trips, Ney said that the trip involved "meetings regarding trade and international business matters." But when asked for more details about the trip and his association with Winfield and Zayat, Walsh said the meetings also involved national security.

"Ney is very active in Middle East issues and certain countries in that region," Walsh said. "It does have national security dimensions, and as much as he would like to, he will not say any more beyond that."

Ney's committee posts -- including chairman of House Administration and a member of an aviation subcommittee -- do not deal directly with the Middle East. But Ney taught English in Iran in the 1970s, has expressed interest as a congressman in Iranian affairs and took part in a 1998 congressional trip to the Middle East.

NBC, which located Winfield, quoted him as saying that he wanted to discuss with Ney FN's hopes to sell airplanes in the Middle East. "My only interest was trying to meet a congressman and see what we could do," Winfield said.

On Ney's second 2003 trip to London, he returned to Les Ambassadeurs where he reported winning the $34,000. Casino rules permit nonmembers to enter only as a guest of a member.

"It is my understanding that Chairman Ney was a guest of a member of the club for that one night," said Tuohey, Ney's attorney. "I don't know the identity of the member," when asked if the sponsor was either Zayat or Winfield.

Walsh said that Ney placed two bets, the first at $100, and won $34,000 in a three-card game of chance. The winnings, which he reported on his financial-disclosure report for 2003, might have helped him pay off at least $30,000 in longstanding credit-card debt that he reported in previous years.

Walsh said that when Ney "won that money -- $34,000 -- he properly declared it at customs, declared it properly on his financial-disclosure forms and, in accordance with the law, paid a third of it in taxes."

Maria Slater, a spokeswoman for the casino, described Les Ambassadeurs as "exclusive. It attracts the top players globally. If you go to Les Ambassadeurs and you are playing with just $100, you will feel a bit out of place."