BELLAIRE, Ohio — Congressman Bob Ney was a long way from the cracked brick streets and ragged neighborhoods of his Rust Belt hometown when he teed off on the fabled golf course at St. Andrews, Scotland, in the summer of 2002.
But there was nothing unusual about his cozy ties with the Washington lobbyist who helped arrange his tee time. The Ohio Republican has a history of close relations with lobbyists and special interests that predate golf partner Jack Abramoff.
In his quarter-century as a state legislator and U.S. representative, Ney, 51, has demonstrated a talent for turning such political connections into opportunities for gifts, travel and other forms of personal gain, records and interviews show.
So far, Ney is the only member of Congress directly linked to allegations that Abramoff traded such gifts as the golf outing for legislative favors. He is identified simply as "Representative #1" in a Jan. 3 plea agreement between Abramoff and federal prosecutors.
Years before Ney came to Washington, however, he began accepting honorariums, in the form of personal checks, and travel from lobbyists and business interests when he served in the Ohio Legislature in the 1980s and '90s.
Two of his former legislative aides in Ohio became lobbyists and went to jail for bribery after Ney went to Washington.
On Capitol Hill, Ney has been tied to a string of favors from Abramoff, including the Scotland golf trip.
He also traveled to England as the guest of a convicted swindler and businessman seeking government trade concessions, reported winning $34,000 at a London casino he visited with the ex-con's business partner, and made a personal deal with another Washington lobbyist to buy her family houseboat.
At the same time, financial questions have swirled around Ney. He paid down more than $30,000 in credit card debts in the same year he reported his casino winnings. He has paid his wife and son about $125,000 out of his campaign funds.
And as was the case in his Ohio state legislator days, Ney's House office became a steppingstone for future lobbyists, who in turn helped fill his campaign coffers. One of those lobbyists went to work for Abramoff and is accused in the plea agreement of participating in Abramoff's schemes.
Ney, who declined through a spokesman to be interviewed for this story, has consistently maintained that he did not violate the law. In a Jan. 12 letter to colleagues, Ney said he was "fully confident that my name will be cleared once the investigation is complete."
