Reply #6: WA POST: 10 months PLUS Griles fined $30,000, three years probation

[L. Coyote]

Former Interior Official Gets Prison
By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 26, 2007; 7:24 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062600179.html


WASHINGTON -- A federal judge chastised the Interior Department's former No. 2 official and doubled his proposed prison term to 10 months Tuesday for lying to senators in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and making excuses about it in court.

J. Steven Griles was the department's deputy secretary and is the highest administration official sentenced in the probe. He pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation ...

Griles admitted to lying to Senate investigators about his relationship with Abramoff, the central figure in a corruption investigation that has led to convictions of a former congressman, legislative aides, lobbyists and officials in the Bush administration.

Second in rank only to then-Secretary Gale Norton, Griles effectively was Interior's chief operating officer between 2001 and 2005 and its top representative on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. .....