Jack Abramoff Gets Three Years Probation for Crypto Fraud

Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose 2006 conviction in a high-profile tribal casino lobbying scandal sparked industry reform, was sentenced Tuesday to three-years of federal probation for his involvement in a separate cryptocurrency fraud.

Abramoff must also pay $2.2 million in restitution to victims of the AML Bitcoin scheme conducted alongside that crytocurrency’s CEO Rowland Marcus Andrade.

Judge Richard Seeborg at the sentencing hearing in the US District Court for the Northern District of California said he was troubled that Abramoff had fallen back into criminal activity after serving almost four years in prison related to his casino lobbying scheme, one of the largest Washington, DC, lobbying scandals implicating officials in President George W. Bush’s administration and members of Congress

But the judge ultimately agreed that Abramoff’s early guilty plea, testimony against Andrade, and aggressive cancer diagnosis meant the probation sentence was appropriate.

“There’s very little prospect of reoffending here,” Seeborg said.

Abramoff, who has been battling an aggressive cancer over the past few years, appeared at the hearing by Zoom. He said he was “embarrassed and devastated” that he got himself into another fraudulent scheme after serving his first sentence.

“As for going forward, I’m just not physically capable of engaging in the kind of business activities that I did even during that period that I stupidly got myself into,” Abramoff said.

Abramoff pled guilty in 2020 to wire fraud for his work on behalf of Andrade and AML Bitcoin, a new proposed cryptocurrency that Andrade told investors had built-in “Know Your Customer” technology that would prevent money laundering.

Abramoff also pled guilty to violating the Lobbying Disclosure Act for separate unregistered lobbying activity. It was the first ever criminal prosecution under the LDA, which was amended in 2018 through the Justice Against Corruption on K Street Act, known as the JACK Act, which was partially a response to Abramoff’s 2006 conviction.

Abramoff’s casino lobbying scandal involved overbilling by tens of millions of dollars Native American tribes seeking to develop casinos on their reservations. He was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 2010. He published a memoir a year later about Washington, DC, corruption and was highly critical of lobbying.

In this case, as part of Abramoff’s plea agreement, he testified against Andrade at trial, who was convicted for fraud by a jury in March. Prosecutors said Andrade, with the help of Abramoff, duped investors out of millions of dollars by lying to them about business deals with governments and falsely claiming they had $5 million to purchase a Superbowl ad that was rejected by TV networks.

Andrade was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Haynes & Boone LLP represents Abramoff.

The case is USA v. Abramoff, N.D. Cal., No. 3:20-cr-00260, 11/18/25.