Another Abramoff associate with ties to NMI writes book

By Haidee V. Eugenio
Reporter

Former lobbyist Neil Volz, whose visit to the CNMI as chief of staff for former representative and convicted felon Bob Ney in 2000 was organized by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s team, has released a book that he claims puts a human face on the business of American politics.

Volz’s self-published book, Into the Sun: A Memoir, came a month after the release of former CNMI lobbyist Abramoff’s book, Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth about Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist.

Abramoff, after leaving Preston Gates, later hired Volz at Greenberg Traurig. They and others’ work was embroiled in the Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal and Abramoff’s monetary influence. Volz reached a plea deal with the Justice Department and pleaded guilty in 2006 and testified against Abramoff associates.

Volz, as Ney’s chief of staff at the time, was one of the congressional staffers who visited Tinian and Rota in 2000 to look into the islands’ infrastructure needs, commit to consider funding, and make sure that CNMI representatives from Tinian and Rota will vote for then representative and future CNMI Gov. Benigno R. Fitial to become House speaker.

Volz was brought to the CNMI by Abramoff’s firm, Preston Gates, along with Mike Scanlon and Brett Loper, an appropriations staffer from former representative Tom DeLay’s office. Preston Gates and other lobby firms Abramoff and his men used to work for had blocked legislation federalizing CNMI immigration for almost a decade. Volz assisted in the lobbying efforts related to the CNMI.

“In short order, the legislators were convinced that we could help them, and Ben [Fitial] became speaker. Immediately, our team secured the funding to conduct studies about Tinian and Rota infrastructure projects. As soon as Ben was installed as speaker of the Legislature, in January 2009, he got Teno [former CNMI governor Pedro P. Tenorio] to retain our firm,” Abramoff said in his book.

Volz, according to the official website of his book, “was one of the most powerful men in Washington [D.C.] and a key player in the biggest corruption scandal since Watergate.”

A former lobbyist and public official, Volz “ushers the reader in to the clandestine world of congressional deal-making and lets them experience his journey down the slippery slope of corruption. Volz outlines important life lessons he learned from the scandal. He also raises fundamental questions about the role of big money in politics. How does corruption occur? Is it an individual failure? Or the result of a failed political system?”

Florida-based human rights activist and former Rota teacher Wendy Doromal, in her blog Unheard No More, said Volz may be the one former Abramoff-connected lobbyists who actually takes responsibility for his actions.

“He appears to have turned his life around and is currently working as a homeless advocate in Fort Meyers, Florida,” she said.