Stanley Brand, a longtime Washington criminal-defense lawyer and former counsel to the U.S. House and late Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, D-Mass., said yesterday that the verdict bolsters Volz's credibility "to the extent that Volz becomes a witness against Bob Ney."

Brand also said the conviction moves the Justice Department one step closer to charging Ney.

"How many strikes can he get before the (Justice) Department pulls the trigger?" Brand asked. "This isn't a directly related case, except it involves the trip, and now the trip has been testified to and a jury convicted Safavian for lying about it. It's another building block. They already have a foundation."

Volz, a longtime Ney loyalist who went to work for Abramoff's firm in 2002, has joined Abramoff, former lobbyist Tony Rudy and former public-relations executive Michael Scanlon in pleading guilty to federal corruption charges. In testimony last month during the Safavian trial, Volz described life as a high-powered lobbyist. Jurors listened intently as he talked about how vital Abramoff considered it to gain inside information from well-placed, powerful sources in federal agencies and on Capitol Hill such as Safavian and Ney. Volz labeled both men "champions" for Abramoff.