Prosecutors recommend 30 to 37 months in prison for Safavian

By Lee Russ

Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 01:59 PM

When David Safavian was first charged with criminal activity, a lot of right wing propagandists tried to depict the situation as blood thirsty liberals trying to hunt down an innocent man for political purposes, simply because of his association with Abramoff.

Well, if he's so innocent, why are prosecutors recommending a sentence of 2.5 to 3+ years in prison?

Prosecutors recommend up to 37 months' jail time for Safavian
By ELISE CASTELLI
October 12, 2006

Prosecutors are recommending that former Bush administration procurement official David Safavian serve between 2½ and three years in jail for obstructing justice and making false statements about his relationship with convicted lobbyist and friend Jack Abramoff.

U.S. attorneys Peter Zeidenberg and Nathaniel Edmonds on Oct. 11 urged Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to sentence Safavian to "the high end of that range" of between 30 and 37 months.
Safavian was convicted in June on one count of obstructing justice and three counts of making false statements to investigators who were looking into help he provided Abramoff while Safavian was the chief of staff at the General Services Administration in 2002. The investigators were looking into whether Safavian violated ethics rules when he accompanied Abramoff on an extravagant golf trip to Scotland and whether he improperly helped Abramoff secure two parcels of federally owned property. Safavian later oversaw federal contracting policy for the Bush administration at the Office of Management and Budget before he abruptly quit and was arrested last year.

The prosecutors' recommendations for sentencing include additional jail time for Safavian's allegedly false testimony during his trial. The jury's unanimous guilty verdict on the obstruction charge is proof that Safavian's testimony to his innocence was false, the prosecutors' sentencing memo said.

Prosecutors urged the judge to deny Safavian's request that he receive a lighter sentence on grounds that he's taken responsibility for his crimes. The U.S. attorneys said Safavian has not admitted to any wrongdoing and continues to appeal his conviction.

Safavian faces a possible 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Safavian's attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, could not be reached for comment.