Horace Cooper Signed Three Tolling Agreements

Horace Cooper

On Friday, February 26, 2010, attorneys for Abramoff-linked defendant Horace Cooper filed a number of motions with the DC District Court. Most of them were Motions to Dismiss. Some of them made pretty good arguments, but there were precious few new facts about the case to be found in the motions. The ACR Blog has typically shied away from discussing matters of the law. While we've waded into such matters in the past, we won't get into them today.

The most interesting fact discovered in the motions of February 26 related to a series of tolling agreements signed by Mr. Cooper. The Third Waiver of Statute of Limitations signed by Mr. Cooper indicates that the statute of limitations was effectively frozen at January 6, 2009, meaning the Justice Department could indict Mr. Cooper for crimes committed after January 6, 2004 notwithstanding the five-year statute of limitations (SoL) typically associated with corruption-style crimes.

Some observers have suggested that the Justice Department will be unable to indict other scandal participants since virtually all Abramoff-related acts occurred more than five years ago. Due to tolling agreements like the one signed by Mr. Cooper, the answer to that question is not so simple. The DoJ may yet indict people who have waived the SoL through similar tolling agreements. Who has signed similar tolling agreements? The DoJ isn't a good source for such information because they are ethically constrained from discussing these matters. A good reporter should ask scandal players directly if they have agreed to waive the SoL. If we were a reporter, we'd start by asking John Doolittle and Tom DeLay if they have signed tolling agreements.

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Horace Cooper Indictment

Who is Laura Quattlebaum?

Laura Quattlebaum Gower is currently a staffer for Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) according to her Linked-in profile. During the active period of Team Abramoff, though, she was known simply as Laura Quattlebaum and worked as a legislative aide to Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.).


Laura Quattlebaum Gower

On February 4, 2002, the government alleges that Kevin Ring was baiting public officials with tickets to the Dave Matthews Band (DMB). Among the persons interested in the tickets was Ms. Quattlebaum. Mr. Ring asked Jack Abramoff to authorize DMB tickets for Ms. Quattlebaum, describing her as "a helper on the Saginaw Cost Share School Program" (GX1020). After Mr. Ring received approval and promised delivery of the DMB tickets, Ms. Quattlebaum emailed:

Kevin- you are the best. I really appreciate it. Please let me know if and when anything comes up and ya'll [sic] need Jack's help. Thanks so much, [redacted]

When Ms. Quattlebaum offered "Jack's help", she was referring to her boss, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.).

The prosecution quizzed witness Todd Boulanger about this email chain. Prosecutors wanted to offer this incident as an example of Team Abramoff's strategy of "grooming" Congressional staffers. Defense attorney Andrew Wise objected. Mr. Wise thought that it was inappropriate to have Mr. Boulanger testify about Ms. Quattlebaum's email when the government didn't even plan to call Ms. Quattlebaum to testify. Both attorneys approached the bench. During the bench conference, prosecutor Michael Ferrara seemed to suggest that Ms. Quattlebaum had broken the law:

THE COURT: You are not arguing that she did anything wrong, Quattlebaum?

MR. FERRARA: No, I don't think it is appropriate what she has done here. I think she is linking a ticket with an official act. No, this is not proper.

MR. WISE: But there is no (official) act.

MR. FERRARA: There doesn't need to be, Your Honor ... One of the instructions we proposed is that in exchange for official action on an as-needed basis. Ms. Quattlebaum is offering her Congressman's help on an as-needed basis. It's exactly what we need to prove right here. All I want to ask Mr. Boulanger is how it worked when he did it.

THE COURT: ... I get the point of how they did it. Basically they cast a net to see who's going to take the bait. When they took the bait, then they gave them more bait.

MR. FERRARA: I just want to give the jury examples.

THE COURT: This is in evidence. You can argue all you want. He has given his examples regarding -- You've got it in evidence. Now you can ask him whatever you want to ask him about what he does, if that's what you're interested in. Go ahead. Move on ... Sustained.

[The ACR Blog did edit the transcript for brevity. Click here to see the relevant pages of the actual transcript.]

Mr. Ferrara seems to have described the "retainer theory" of Honest Services Fraud (HSF) as he described Ms. Quattlebaum's actions during this bench conference. It isn't clear to us whether Ms. Quattlebaum actually needed to perform an official act. Mr. Ferrara clearly suggests that no official act is necessary. Regarding the "retainer theory" of HSF, US v. Kincaid-Chauncey says:

It is sufficient, for example, if the evidence establishes that the government official has been put on "retainer" - that is, that the government official has received payments or other items of value with the understanding that when the payor comes calling, the government official will do whatever is asked. Only individuals who can be shown to have had the specific intent to trade official actions for items of value are subject to criminal punishment on this theory of honest services fraud. The retainer theory of quid pro quo eliminates the possibility that an innocent lobbyist or politician will be convicted for depriving the public of honest services.

The Third and First Circuits have both explicitly approved such "retainer" theories of honest services fraud, although they called them by different names.

The Justice Department has not charged Ms. Quattlebaum with any crime.

Doolittle Staffers in Deep Doo-Doo

The first witness in U.S. v. Kevin Ring was Henry Schuelke. Mr. Schuelke had been hired by Greenberg Traurig to perform an external investigation into the activities of Team Abramoff. Prosecutor Michael Leotta questioned Mr. Schuelke about an April 20, 2002 dinner for which Mr. Ring submitted a $2,000 expense report. Mr. Leotta questioning Mr. Schuelke:

Q: And directing your attention to the second page of this expense report, do you see a receipt from Signatures restaurant for April 20th, 2002?

A: I do.

Q: A credit card receipt of Mr. Kevin Ring, in the amount of $2,000?

A: I see it, yes.

Q: Did you ask Mr. Ring about this receipt and these expenses?

A: I did.

Q: What did he say about them?

A: I invited his attention to the expense report, as I recall, which indicates that six of the line items on the report under the date April 20th, add up to $2,000 in the aggregate.

The expense reports attributes various amounts making up the total $2,000, to six different firm client accounts. And with respect to each of those entries, the description of purpose reads, "Signatures with Rep. Doolittle staff."

I asked him, first of all, as I recall, inviting his attention to the fact that his credit card receipts indicates that the party was served at table 60, if he could tell me how many places or how many people could be accommodated at a single table at the restaurant Signatures. And he told me typically four.

$2,000 for four people. Nice dinner. The fine wine must have been flowing freely! The life of a Congressional staffer sure has its perks, doesn't it? Maybe those aren't legitimate perks, though. The direct examination of Mr. Schuelke continues:

Q: And did you ask him anything about the impact on Congressman Doolittle's staff as a result of that dinner?

A: One of us, that is to say, myself, my colleague, Bill Shields or another colleague, Dick Champion, who all participated in this interview, one of us, and it might well have been I, said, wouldn't they be in deep shit?

Q: What did Mr. Ring say in response?

A: They would.

The transcripts don't make it clear just which Doolittle staffers attended the $2,000 dinner. Regular readers can probably make an informed guess ... I know I can. The point here is that Mr. Ring knew that his entertaining violated some sort of standard. Mr. Ring and his defense team have steadfastly maintained that Mr. Ring did not violate the Honest Services Fraud statute. So perhaps when Mr. Ring says that the Doolittle staffers would be in "deep s---", Mr. Ring was referring to the ethics rules of the House of Representatives.