ABRAMOFF: Who is Adam Kidan?

ABRAMOFF: Who is Adam Kidan?

Today, Abramoff will have to deal with part two of his legal troubles: his
partnership with Adam Kidan to take over SunCruz that ended up in a big fat
case of fraud.

Who is Adam Kidan? And how did a man with a Dial-a-Mattress franchise end up
in the middle of Jack Abramoff's problems and the biggest congressional scandal
to hit D.C. in decades, not to mention a mob hit Kidan likely orchestrated himself?
The easy answer is greed, with a lot stupidity thrown in for good measure. But
not even that describes this mess.

… In the midst of the infighting with Boulis, Kidan
decided to hire an old New York friend, Anthony Moscatiello, who was running
a catering hall. Kidan made him a food-and-beverage consultant. Moscatiello
has been described by law enforcement as an unofficial bookkeeper for New
York City's Gambino crime family.

He and Kidan first met about 1990 when Kidan was running
a bagel business in the Hamptons. Moscatiello had been indicted on federal
heroin-trafficking charges in 1983 along with Gene Gotti, brother of John
Gotti, the boss of the Gambinos. Moscatiello was accused of trying to dissuade
witnesses from testifying in the case. After Gotti and several others were
convicted and sentenced to prison, charges against Moscatiello were dropped.

In Florida, Moscatiello began visiting Kidan's condominium
and golfing with Kidan and Waldman, according to depositions of Kidan and
Waldman. Kidan later testified he was unaware of Moscatiello's legal troubles
or the alleged Gambino affiliations. …

Untangling
a Lobbyist's Stake in a Casino Fleet

One of the unfortunate elements of Adam Kidan's life is that his
mother was married to “Sami” Shemtov, who just so happens to have
made a lot of money in the pornography biz. However, Kidan's mom never knew
it. But Shemtov's former wife evidently couldn't keep her trap shut and
ended up blabbing to a mobster grunt in the Bonanno crime family that there
was “hundreds of thousands of dollars in a safe in the house.” Kidan's mom was clueless, so one night when the thugs broke in to raid
the house, Kidan's mom was caught in the middle, got shot in the face and died.
One of the mob gang waiting outside when it happened was Chris Paciello, the same guy who later became infamous
in the Miami club scene and dated the likes of Madonna, Daisy Fuentes and “was
once seen with his hands on Jennifer Lopez's behind,” according to Matthew
Continetti of the Weekly Standard, which I've quoted quite a few times this
week.

But that wasn't Kidan's last run in with the mob. In the 1990s,
he went into the bagel biz with a guy named Michael Cavallo who was an “associate
of gangsters.” This is evidently how Kidan met Anthony Moscatiello, who
was a “caterer” that had a long relationship with the Gambinno's going
back a couple of decades and also did business with the Gotti family, including
the notorious John Gotti. According to the Weekly Standard, Kidan denies that
he knew Moscatiello was involved with the mob, however, it's pretty hard to
miss given “big Tony's” history.

Kidan hit it big with his Dial-a-Mattress franchise in 1994, when
he opened an outlet in D.C., as the Republican revolution rolled into town.
He lived big too, but by the end of the 1990s he was bust. His step father,
the porn guy, sued Kidan for stealing $250,000, then other troubles developed,
which ended up with Kidan having to repay his porn dad, as well as being disbarred.
The string of lies that Kidan used to pump up his reputation also ended up being
exposed, so by the time his old College Republican friend Jack Abramoff looked
him up again it's likely that anything Jack had to offer must have seemed golden.

Fast forward to Boulis, Abramoff and Kidan making the deal for
SunCruz, which
I outlined yesterday. Well, when Boulis started acting like he still had
a stake in the company, Kidan and he started locking horns. Kidan then began
a sort of campaign to make it look like Boulis was threatening his life. Kidan
hired bodyguards, leased a $180,000 armor-plated Mercedes, and placed stories
with reporters in Florida that backed his fear up. About this time Kidan brought
Moscatiello into the picture and he started paying him tens of thousands of
dollars. At the same time, Kidan started paying Anthony “Little Tony”
Ferrari's company, Moon Over Miami Beach, tens of thousands of dollars, too,
supposedly for security.

However, in the end, there was no evidence that Kidan was ever
in any danger.

The same cannot be said for Gus Boulis who ended up murdered,
with Moscatiello and Ferrari eventually charged with his killing. All because
Boulis couldn't butt out, after getting a 10% stake in SunCruz, which he wasn't
supposed to have because of his deal with the government that kept him out of
jail. But considering Kidan and Abramoff defrauded him anyway, no wonder Boulis
pushed back hard.

“I wish I had never met Jack,”
Adam R. Kidan said in an interview with
Newsday, the first he has given to the news media since pleading guilty to
fraud charges two weeks ago.

Kidan, 41, admitted in Miami federal court Dec. 15
that he had participated in the $60-million fraud that bankrupted South Florida-based
SunCruz Casinos, a line of gambling boats, in 2001. He agreed to testify against
Abramoff — his partner in SunCruz and his buddy since college days —
and also to cooperate with federal investigators probing influence peddling
and lobbying on Capitol Hill.

Lobbyist's
Friend Says He Was a Willing Partner in Venture

Kidan and Abramoff were involved in the fraud together, which
included a fake wire transfer for SunCruz that had the two of them owning Gus
Boulis' business without putting up a dime. However, as far as Kidan wishing
he'd never met Jack Abramoff, his troubles started long before he ever got involved
with Jack.

Oh, and in case you've forgotten, Adam Kidan is the man Republican Congressman Bob Ney said was “well known as a solid individual and a respected member of his community,” which was put into the Congressional Record, through the prodding of Michael Scanlon, Abramoff's partner and the former press secretary of none other than Tom “The Hammer” Delay.

Sources: Matthew
Continetti of the Weekly Standard, Robert
E. Kessler of the LA Times and Newday, and the Washington Post's Susan
Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi and R.
Jeffrey Smith among others.