Rudy, a George Mason Law School graduate who had spent five years on DeLay's staff in a variety of jobs, joined Abramoff and Kidan at another sumptuous sporting event on June 15. The three flew on SunCruz's jet out to the U.S. Open in Pebble Beach, Calif., along with Joan Wagner, Boulis's chief financial officer, and her husband, said a former SunCruz insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Rudy did not report the trip in his House travel records. When contacted by The Washington Post recently, Rudy declined to be interviewed for this article. Wagner and her lawyers did not respond to calls for comment.

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A week after the Pebble Beach trip, on June 22, 2000, Boulis entered into a formal agreement to sell SunCruz to Kidan and Abramoff.

Now the partners had to find financing for the deal. They turned to a specialty lender, Foothill Capital, a unit of Wells Fargo & Co.

On the plus side for the would-be borrowers were Abramoff's glowing press clippings, including a July 3 story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that described the millions he was bringing in to his lobbying firm. The article, which Kidan faxed to lenders, called Abramoff Washington's "GOP stalwart" because of his pull with Republican leaders such as DeLay, who praised Abramoff for getting Indians to donate to Republicans.

Abramoff provided Foothill Capital a financial statement stating his net worth as $13 million. He valued his lobbying practice at $7.5 million and family business interests at nearly $3 million, including a $1.4 million investment with his father in a company that owns parking lots in Atlantic City. The lobbyist also sent Foothill Capital a list of loan references that included Rudy and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.).

"I don't remember it, but I would certainly have been happy to give him a good recommendation," Rohrabacher said. "He's a very honest man."

Kidan also provided Foothill Capital a one-page financial statement in which he claimed to be worth $26 million, all but $874,000 of it in unspecified "closely held corporations." But a background report on Kidan done for Foothill Capital revealed a string of lawsuits, judgments, liens, bankruptcies and failed businesses.

Kidan grew up in New York and graduated in 1989 from Brooklyn Law School. He ran two bagel businesses and had a law practice. In 1993, his mother was killed during a botched robbery at her Staten Island home. The slaying was linked to organized crime figures trying to steal several hundred thousand dollars they thought Kidan's stepfather kept in a safe.

The stepfather had also sued him, alleging that Kidan misappropriated $250,000 being held in escrow, a dispute that would eventually lead Kidan to relinquish his license to practice law. Among the funds at issue: $15,000 posted as a reward in his mother's slaying.

Nevertheless, Foothill Capital and a second specialty lender, Citadel Equity Fund, agreed to lend Abramoff and Kidan $60 million to buy Boulis's business, requiring the two men to personally guarantee the loans and to put $23 million of their own money into the deal.

Foothill Capital's representative in the deal was Greg C. Walker, then a vice president at the firm. Asked last week why Foothill Capital would take a chance on someone such as Kidan, Walker said, "You'd have to be there at the time."

He declined to elaborate.

CONTINUED : Sealed envelope

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