An associate of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff must pay the $20 million in court-ordered restitution to the Native American tribes he bilked, including $1.85 million to El Paso's Tiguas, a federal appeals court ruled today.




Abramoff also has been ordered to make restitution to the Tiguas and other tribes, but it's unlikely he and Scanlon will ever be able to pay more than a fraction of their court-ordered restitution.

Abramoff convinced the Tiguas in 2002 to pay Scanlon $4.2 million for a so-called public relations effort to reopen their Speaking Rock Casino, which had been closed by federal courts earlier that year.

A Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigation found that Scanlon performed little actual work and that he and Abramoff had secretly agreed to split the profits from the Tigua payment, which eventually totaled $1.85 million for each man.