The man who went after Guam Congressman Michael San Nicolas for an ethics complaint was arrested for allegedly crashing into a Pennsylvania home while he was driving drunk. And according to officials, he allegedly attempted to bribe the owner of the home to not call police.
Omar Ashmawy, the now-suspended head of the Office of Congressional Ethics, ironically now faces criminal charges after his September 10 arrest.
According to the criminal complaint against him, Mr. Ashmawy allegedly was driving drunk, veered off the road, plowed over a stop sign, hit one parked car, and then another before finally crashing into the porch of a Pennsylvania home. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
His preliminary hearing is scheduled for November 1.
Though the arrest happened in September, Mr. Ashmawy only was placed on leave a month later, after Yahoo News contacted the OCE for comment.
According to the news agency’s report on the matter, Mr. Ashmawy offered to pay the owner of the home he damaged if he didn’t call police. The owner of the home did call police, and when they came, Ashmawy allegedly refused to take field sobriety and blood alcohol tests.
Mr. Ashmawy led the investigation against Mr. San Nicolas that was based almost exclusively on a former San Nicolas staffer’s word against the congressman. No forensic evidence of any wrongdoing was ever discovered, and the investigative committee was forced to close its investigation without making any recommendation to the U.S. House of Representatives for sanctions. Instead, the ethics committee issued a statement claiming “substantial evidence” existed that San Nicolas committed crimes, and announced it will forward its report to the U.S. Department of Justice instead.
In the aftermath of Mr. Ashmawy’s inflammatory exit report closing the investigation against Mr. San Nicolas with no recommendations to proceed in the Congress, the congressman’s political opponents, including Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, raised conjecture that San Nicolas was under criminal investigation. No such evidence exists of one. Unlike the conjecture raised from Ashmawy’s report against San Nicolas, Ashmawy actually is facing criminal charges.
The irony is Shakespearean.
