Ex-Interior employee pleads guilty for failure to report Abramoff gifts

A former Interior Department employee pleaded guilty on Friday to misdemeanor charges for failing to report gifts he received from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the Associated Press reported.

Roger Stillwell told a federal magistrate that he had been given hundreds of dollars worth of football and concert tickets from Abramoff, who at the time was lobbying for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Stillwell was with the Interior Department's insular affairs office, which handles issues involving the island government.

Stillwell received four tickets to a Washington Redskins game in December 2003 valued at $316 with an actual cost of $2,147, prosecutors said. He also accepted two tickets to a 2003 Simon and Garfunkel concert worth $166, prosecutors said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay set sentencing for Oct. 26. Stillwell faces up to a year in prison.