The Story

Class of 2000 Alum Pleads Guilty in Abramoff Scandal

Mar. 1, 2007 | By Andy Henderson, DSJ Staff Reporter

Entanglement in the Jack Abramoff scandal has snuffed out one of the College’s prominent young rising stars.

Will Heaton, class of 2000, is the seventh public official to plead guilty or be convicted in Abramoff’s wake.

Heaton, 28, plead guilty on Monday to conspiracy charges in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, admitting that while he served as Chief of Staff for now-convicted former Ohio congressman Bob Ney, Heaton sought out and accepted bribes, gifts and services from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates.

In return, Heaton misused his position towards Abramoff’s ends and falsified statements to cover up any signs of wrongdoing.

Heaton has been ordered by District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle to appear for fingerprinting, booking and photographing before Mar. 23, though he has been released pending a hearing on May 31.

While he awaits sentencing, Judge Huvelle ordered Heaton to remain in the D.C. area, surrender his passport and report by phone to the District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency weekly. The court allowed him to travel to New York and North Carolina contingent on prior approval.

Heaton could face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

The myriad small-scale gifts Heaton and Ney regularly enjoyed, such as free meals at Abramoff’s expensive DC restaurant and free box tickets to concerts and sporting events, were enough to put the pair beyond their $100 annual limit of unreported gifts from a single source.

Yet in 2002, in a much more flagrant disregard of ethics regulations, the two accompanied Abramoff and five others on an extravagant week-long vacation to Scotland’s Bonnie St. Andrews for distillery tours and golf at world famous courses.

The week in Scotland cost over $160,000, about eight times as much as the thirteen legitimate trips Heaton reported between 2001 and 2005, according to American Radio Works, which accumulated data on all reported trips in that time period.

Heaton then misrepresented the value and purpose of the trip and several others like it to the House Ethics committee, and Ney knowingly signed off on the misrepresentations.

At Abramoff’s behest, Ney then drafted superfluous amendments into the Help America Vote Act that would change federal gambling regulations to allow two Native American tribes - Abramoff’s clients and major benefactors of the trip to Scotland - to open casinos.

In another instance, Heaton also admitted in his guilty plea to accepting thousands of dollars in gambling chips on a 2003 trip to London from Fouad Al Zayat, a London-based, Syrian-born businessman who hoped Ney would help him circumvent American trade regulations so that he could sell spare airplane parts to Iran.

After gambling into the early morning, Heaton and Ney cashed out $5,000 and $47,000, respectively and never returned or reported any of their winnings.

Yesterday, Ney began the 30-month prison sentence he received in addition to a $6,000 fine and 200 community service hours.

Abramoff is already serving his seventy months in prison. He is also to pay over twenty million dollars in restitution to defrauded clients.

The outcome of this scandal will undoubtedly end Heaton’s promising career in politics that began in high school when he started working as a congressional page.

While at the College, he worked as a floor assistant to then-speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and continued to serve in this position after graduating until former Rep. Ney picked him up in 2001.

After only six months on staff, Ney named Heaton his chief of staff, making him, at 23, the youngest staffer in Washington holding that coveted position.

Proud of its recent graduate’s quick success, the College listed Heaton as one of 12 �"Distinguished Alumni” from the last ten years’ graduating classes to be displayed to prospective students on the �"See what you can do with a William and Mary education” section College’s website.

According to a Google cache, Heaton kept that distinction until at least Feb. 23, but the updated website shows he has since been removed from the list.

American Radio Works suggests that these seven guilty officials may be scapegoats making up the smallest tip of a corrupt Washington iceberg.

�"Public documents show that from 2000 through mid-2005, Capitol Hill staffers accepted nearly 17,000 free trips worth almost $30 million. Many of these trips clearly violate ethics rules designed to limit the abuse of power,” reads the American Radio Works website.

Democrats, who campaigned in the midterm elections on cries for ethics and honest government, would like to think perhaps a change in Washington is on its way, and the FBI is committed to continuing to investigate the abuse of office.

�"American taxpayers deserve honesty from public officials and employees,” Chip Burrus, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s criminal investigation division, said in a statement, according to a Yahoo.com article. �"We will continue to pursue those like Will Heaton who sell their integrity at the public's expense.”