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Rep. Renzi's Indictment

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from: Bonnie Goldstein

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008, at 5:11 PM ET

Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz, was indicted last week on 35 federal counts of extortion, money laundering, wire fraud, insurance fraud, and conspiracy (see excerpts below and on the following five pages). According to the charges, Renzi "needed a substantial infusion of funds to … maintain his personal lifestyle" (Page 6) and saw an opportunity to do so by expediting payment of an old debt owed him by a former partner in the real estate business.

Land owned by the U.S. government is not generally for sale. But a privately owned piece of property "attractive to the federal government" (Page 4) can sometimes be swapped for a tract of federal land, provided Congress signs off on the deal. In 2005, a mining company wanting to extract copper from federal land in Arizona came to Renzi, who held a slot on the House natural resources committee. According to prosecutors, Renzi steered the mining firm (called "Company A" in the charging document but identified elsewhere as Resolution Copper) to property it could offer the government in trade. The land, 480 acres along the San Pedro River, was owned by his ex-partner James Sandlin, who in turn owed Renzi more than $700,000. Although Resolution Copper backed out of the deal, Renzi quickly found another buyer, Preserve Petrified Forest Land Investors (referred to as "Investment Group B" in the indictment; see Page 4), which was also seeking a federal-land swap. Preserve Petrified Forest bought Sandlin's land, and Renzi collected on his debt. But Renzi then declined to sponsor land-exchange legislation for Preserve Petrified Forest, allegedly because the deal was drawing unwanted scrutiny. Eventually, Renzi sponsored a land swap for Resolution Copper instead, claiming (through his lawyer) that he'd only been "trying to do the best possible thing for all the various possible constituencies." Feeling "somewhat victimized," Preserve Petrified Forest, unsurprisingly, took its story to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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hot document
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from: Bonnie Goldstein

Posted Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008, at 5:11 PM ET
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Bonnie Goldstein is a former special investigator to the U.S. Senate and investigative producer for ABC News.
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