Fraser Verrusio, was a high-level committee aide to Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 Rep. Don Young

Don Young

Donald Edwin "Don" Young is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1973. He is a member of the Republican Party.Young is the 6th most senior U.S. Representative and the 2nd most senior Republican Representative, as well as the 2nd most senior Republican in Congress as a whole...

 and a policy director for the House Transportation Committee while Young was chairman of the panel. On March 6, 2009, he was indicted for violating federal anti-corruption laws in the long-running Jack Abramoff scandals

Jack Abramoff scandals

The federal investigations into Jack Abramoff and his political and business dealings are among the broadest and most extensive in American political history, involving well over a dozen offices of the FBI and over 100 FBI agents tasked exclusively to the investigation...

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Background

Verrusio was one of the first hires Young made when he took over as chairman of the Transportation Committee in 2001 and was promoted to policy director in 2002. He was charged with using his position on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to help an equipment rental company secure three amendments in federal highway legislation and accepting an all-expenses-paid trip to the first game of the 2003 World Series in New York between the Yankees and the Florida Marlins that later included a visit to a strip club. The amendments "would have encouraged public works agencies collecting federal highway money to rent rather than own equipment", according to the indictment. Rather than purchase their equipment, the amendment created incentives for agencies to rent from the leasing company, which wasn't named in the indictment."

The equipment rental conspiracy alleged in the indictment "has already resulted in guilty pleas from the two Abramoff associates -- Todd Boulanger

Todd Boulanger

Todd Boulanger is an American lobbyist. He was senior vice president of Cassidy & Associates and was a figure in the Jack Abramoff scandal.-Background:...

 and James Hirni

James Hirni

James F. Hirni is a lobbyist who was convicted for bribing Senate Staff aides in return for favorable amendments to federal legislation. A former aide to Sen. Tim Hutchinson , he joined the lobbying firm Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, and then became a member of "Team Abramoff" at Greenberg Traurig...

 -- and the Senate aide, Trevor Blackann

Trevor Blackann

Trevor Blackann is a former American lobbyist who pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff scandal.Blackann began his political career as a staffer for Roy Blunt, and subsequently Kit Bond....

, who at the time worked for Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 Senator Christopher Bond

Kit Bond

Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond is a former United States Senator from Missouri and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, he defeated Democrat Harriett Woods by a margin of 53%-47%. He was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004...

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