Former Young aide seeks probation for Abramoff role

Mark Zachares, a former University of Alaska Anchorage basketball player who served as special counsel to Young, R-Alaska, pleaded guilty in 2007 to accepting gifts from Abramoff in return for providing inside information. His sentencing was delayed while he cooperated with federal authorities, but with the Abramoff investigation winding down, he's scheduled to learn his punishment on Nov. 22.

Though Zachares' plea bargain suggested he receive up to two years in prison, on Monday he asked U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle to grant him probation, as she had for two other congressional aides who pleaded guilty after participating in Abramoff-related conspiracies.

Unlike those two aides, Zachares did not help prosecutors convict anyone, he acknowledged to the judge. But that doesn't mean he didn't try, he said.

"The Court should know, however, that for more than three years Mr. Zachares has cooperated with the Government to the best of his ability," his lawyer wrote. "Mr. Zachares has spent substantial time meeting with Assistant United States Attorneys, FBI agents and with lawyers from the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice to provide them whatever information and assistance that was requested. There is no suggestion that his cooperation was not candid, forthright or complete. For reasons beyond Mr. Zachares' control, no prosecutions arose from his cooperation and the Court should not hold that against him."

According to court documents, Zachares was a labor and immigration official in the Northern Mariana Islands when he first encountered Abramoff, who lobbied for the U.S. possession. In 2002, after Zachares returned to the mainland, Abramoff helped him land a job on Young's committee -- a transaction that Young has never explained. Zachares first worked as counsel on a subcommittee, then as special counsel to Young himself. In a memo to fellow lobbyists, Abramoff said Zachares was "pulling our load inside."

In return for providing information, "Team Abramoff" rewarded him with more than $30,000 in tickets to sporting events, a luxury golf trip to Scotland and $10,000 in cash.

A second former committee aide to Young, Fraser Verrusio, is facing a trial on corruption charges over a trip to the World Series in 2003 paid for by Abramoff lobbyists. Verrusio is accused of helping to change a highway bill to encourage contractors to lease rather than buy equipment at the behest of an Abramoff client in the rental business.

Zachares spent time in Alaska as a young man and attended UAA, where he played basketball in the first Great Alaska Shootout tournament in 1978.

He pleaded guilty to a single count of fraud for failing in his duty to give Congress his honest services. Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court sharply limited the use of fraud law in corruption cases, but Zachares said in his sentencing memo he had no intention of trying to get his case dismissed -- unlike the former chief of staff to Gov. Frank Murkowski, Jim Clark, who was successful in challenging his own guilty plea to honest-services fraud last month.

"At the time that Mr. Zachares agreed to plead guilty, he admitted he had taken many actions while employed in the United States House of Representatives that defrauded the public of its right to his honest services," his lawyer said. "Mr. Zachares now regrets each and every one of those actions and wishes he could turn back time and save himself and his family from all of the heartbreak and injury caused by his actions. He knows, however, that he cannot take back what he has done and instead decided to take full responsibility for his own actions and assist the United States in other investigations."

Zachares, 52, also asked for mercy so that he could continue to support his family. He has surrendered his law license and has been involved in international sales, taking two trips to Korea -- with the court's permission -- while awaiting sentencing.

Find Richard Mauer online at adn.com/contact/rmauer or call 257-4345.