Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Former White House official David Safavian should be sentenced to about three years in prison after being found guilty of lying and obstruction in a case related to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, U.S. prosecutors said.

Safavian, 39, was convicted June 20 of hiding his efforts to help Abramoff get government business and obstructing an inquiry into a trip they took to Scotland. The jury found Safavian guilty of three false-statements charges and one of obstructing justice, and acquitted him of another obstruction charge. Each carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In a memo submitted to U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, prosecutors Nathaniel Edmonds and Peter Zeidenberg argued that Safavian should receive ``the high end'' of a range of 30 to 37 months. They said Safavian's request for probation, home detention or community service is ``wholly unwarranted.''

``Far from taking responsibility for his criminal conduct as he claims, defendant has tried to deflect blame from himself and place it on Abramoff,'' Edmonds and Zeidenberg wrote in the Oct. 11 memo. ``There is simply no basis for this court to accept defendant's invitation to disregard the sentencing guidelines and impose a breathtakingly lenient sentence.''

Safavian's lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, wasn't immediately available for comment. Safavian appealed his conviction after Friedman refused to set aside the jury verdict last month.

First Trial

Safavian's was the first trial to come out of the investigation of Abramoff, 47, who pleaded guilty in January to defrauding American Indian tribes of millions of dollars and attempting to corrupt public officials. Three former congressional aides who later worked with Abramoff have also pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors.

Prosecutors used e-mails between Safavian and Abramoff to convince a jury that Safavian hid the help he gave his lobbyist friend after getting lavish gifts such as the golf trip to Scotland in 2002. Safavian unsuccessfully contended during the trial that he merely answered a friend's questions with public information and believed he had fully paid for the trip.

At the time of the trip, Safavian was chief of staff at the General Services Administration, which oversees government land. Before the trip, he asked a GSA ethics official by e-mail how he should treat the offer from Abramoff of a free ride to Scotland on a jet. He told the ethics official that Abramoff had ``no business before GSA'' and did all his work on Capitol Hill.

Prosecutors said those statements were untrue because Safavian and Abramoff had discussed how to acquire rights to GSA properties. Safavian said his statement was true because Abramoff didn't have any GSA contracts and wasn't likely to have any.

Safavian left the GSA after getting an appointment from President George W. Bush to the Office of Management and Budget. He served as the government's top procurement officer until September 2005, when he resigned several days before his arrest.

Safavian is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 27.

The case is U.S. v. Safavian, 05cr370, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington kjensen@Bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 12, 2006 11:19 EDT