Court indicts ex-aide to US senator in sex scandal

WASHINGTON– A federal grand jury Thursday indicted the former aide to US Senator John Ensign — embroiled in a sex and corruption scandal — on charges that he violated laws barring him from lobbying the lawmaker.

The grand jury charged Douglas Hampton with violating a law forbidding congressional staff members from lobbying lawmakers until at least one year after they have left their Capitol Hill jobs.

Senator Ensign is currently being investigated after having an affair with Hampton’s wife Cynthia, who also worked as an aide to the senator.

Douglas Hampton, 48, was charged with seven counts of violating federal conflict of interest laws. The indictment handed up Thursday alleged that he lobbied Ensign’s office on various occasions in the year after leaving senator’s employment in April 2008.

A Senate ethics committee last month named a special counsel to investigate claims that Ensign violated ethics rules and federal law after his affair with Hampton’s wife.

Ensign acknowledged the affair in 2009, after Douglas Hampton threatened to go public. The senator later confessed that his parents had paid Cynthia and Douglas Hampton $96,000 after Douglas Hampton left his job in the senator’s office.

Ensign called the money a gift and the Hamptons called it severance pay. Critics say the money is an improper campaign contribution to Ensign by his parents.

It was not immediately known if there was a connection in the sex and improper payment scandal, and the charges related to Hampton’s lobbying work for a Las Vegas area airline and an Nevada energy company.

The indictment charges that Hampton sought the help of Ensign and his staff to pressure the departments of Transportation and Energy on behalf of his two powerful clients.

The indictment read that Hampton between May 1, 2008, and May 1, 2009, “knowingly and wilfully made, with the intent to influence, communications to staff members of the US senator” on behalf of the two companies.

US law states that congressional staffers are prohibited “for a period of one year after termination of employment with the Senate, from knowingly making any communication to a Senate office with the intent to influence official actions on behalf of another person.”

The maximum penalty for each of the seven counts alleged in the indictment is five years in prison. Hampton also faces a maximum fine of $250,000 per count.

Ensign on March 7 announced that he would not run for re-election when his senate term ends next year.

The Nevada Republican, who was first elected to the House in 1994, and who won an open set Senate bid in 2000, said his decision not to seek re-election was not influenced by an on-going Senate Ethics Committee investigation.