They included:

• The Capital Athletic Foundation, created by Abramoff as a sports-oriented youth charity. He funded it with millions improperly diverted from his lobbying clients and treated it as his "personal piggy bank," a lawmaker said, spending money on pet projects that had nothing to do with its stated purpose.
• The American International Center, a bogus "international think tank" at a beach house near Rehoboth Beach, Del. Abramoff and Scanlon used the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients and then send it to their personal bank accounts.
• Toward Tradition, a nonprofit in Mercer Island, Wash., that promotes "traditional Judeo Christian values" and was used to help Abramoff funnel an alleged $50,000 bribe of an aide to DeLay.
• The National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, an obscure conservative organization that Abramoff used to defraud an Indian tribe and an offshore gaming alliance of at least $2 million for his and Scanlon's personal enrichment.
  

Abramoff's story is not just one of clever fraudsters, but of the seeming willingness of some donors and charities to look the other way. They say that they too are victims, although some experts question whether they were diligent enough.

Abramoff's Charity Began at Home
The lobbyist admits he used nonprofits to evade taxes, pad his pockets and bribe officials.
By Chuck Neubauer and Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writers
February 11, 2006

WASHINGTON — In his own way, disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff engaged in many charitable endeavors over the course of his decade-long career as a Washington insider.

There was the time he laundered money through a religious group's accounts to try to bribe a congressional aide. He diverted funds from a youth athletic foundation to bankroll a golf junket for a congressman and to bolster the bank account of his Washington restaurant. He used two other nonprofits to line his own pockets with millions of dollars defrauded from clients.

Charities are supposed to advance the public interest, which is why they aren't taxed. But Abramoff, by his own admission, used them to evade taxes, enrich himself and bribe public officials, according to a plea agreement he signed with federal prosecutors in January.

"One of the most disturbing elements of this whole sordid story is the blatant misuse of charities in a scheme to peddle political influence," said Mark Everson, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

Abramoff's use and misuse of nonprofits played a key role in each of the three counts of his indictment: conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion. He admitted evading $1.7 million in income taxes over three years, in part by using nonprofits to conceal personal income from the IRS.