WASHINGTON (AP) – Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles on Friday became the ninth and highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, pleading guilty to a felony charge of obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee.

The former No. 2 official in the Interior Department admitted in federal court that he lied to Senate investigators about his relationship with convicted lobbyist Abramoff, who repeatedly sought Griles’ intervention at Interior on behalf of Abramoff’s Indian tribal clients.

Griles pleaded guilty to a felony charge for testifying falsely before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on Nov. 2, 2005, and during an earlier deposition with the panel’s investigators on October 20, 2005.

“I am sorry for my wrongdoing. I fully accept the responsibility for my conduct and the consequences it may have,” Griles said in a statement. “When a Senate committee asks questions, they must be answered fully and completely and it is not my place to decide whether those questions are revelant or too personal. I apologize to my family, my friends, the committee and its staff.”

In court, he was asked: “Do you acknowledge that these were materially false statements about your relationship with Mr. Abramoff?”

“Yes, your honor,” Griles replied to Federal District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle.

Under the plea agreement, federal prosecutors agreed to propose no more than a 10-month prison sentence for Griles – the minimum they could ask for under sentencing guidelines – that would allow him to serve half that time in prison and half either in a halfway house or under house arrest. The maximum sentence he could face is five years and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for June 26.

Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became an architect of President Bush’s energy policies, acknowledged concealing that his relationship with Abramoff had been unique – because of their introduction through Griles’ then-girlfriend, Italia Federici.

Prosecutors dropped earlier allegations that Griles did anything improper to help Abramoff or had gained anything of value from the former Republican lobbyist. The agreement does not require Griles to help investigators with their grand jury probe.

Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said the case – the ninth conviction in the Abramoff investigation – shows the Justice Department is willing to go after “public corruption at all levels of government.”

Earl Devaney, the Interior Department’s inspector general, praised the many Interior employees who told the truth about Griles “sometimes at great risk to their own careers.”

Griles and Abramoff met on March 1, 2001, through Federici, a Republican environmental activist. One week later, Griles, who had been serving on Mr. Bush’s transition team for Interior, was nominated by the president as deputy to Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

Second in rank only to Ms. Norton, Griles effectively was Interior’s chief operating officer while at the agency between July 2001 and January 2005, and its top representative on Vice President Cheney’s energy task force.

Griles, 59, lives in Falls Church, Va., with Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who until January was an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s environmental division. They began dating in February 2003, when Wooldridge was Norton’s deputy chief of staff and counselor. Wooldridge became Interior’s top lawyer and counseled Griles on ethics matters.

The AP reported in February that Wooldridge, who became the nation’s environmental prosecutor in November 2005, bought a $980,000 vacation home last year with Griles and Donald R. Duncan, the top Washington lobbyist for ConocoPhillips. Nine months later, she signed an agreement giving the company more time to clean up air pollution at some of its refineries.

In government papers, Griles acknowledged that he obstructed the Senate committee’s investigation into Abramoff and his associates’ dealings with Indian casino clients. Griles admits he testified falsely four times to the committee and once to the panel’s investigators.

Abramoff persuaded his Indian clients to pay him tens of millions of dollars to influence decisions coming out of Congress and the Interior Department. Part of his pitch to clients was that he had serious pull at the department, especially with Griles.

Awaiting sentencing in the bribery scandal, Abramoff already is serving six years in prison for a bogus Florida casino deal. Others convicted so far in the wide-ranging, influence peddling investigation include former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and former White House official David Safavian.

Abramoff’s ties to at least three other current or former Republican lawmakers have come under scrutiny in the probe: Rep. John Doolittle of California, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and former Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana.

The extent of Abramoff’s reach at Interior is still somewhat unclear. The court papers echo the Senate committee’s account of events.

Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give $500,000 to Federici’s Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy from March 2001 to May 2003, about the time when Griles and Federici ended their romantic relationship. They began dating in 1998.

Ms. Federici co-founded the advocacy council with Ms. Norton – before Ms. Norton joined the Bush administration – and with Grover Norquist, a conservative GOP activist, college friend of Abramoff and a close ally of Mr. Bush.

Griles’ office calendars, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, show frequent meetings with Ms. Federici occurring within days of them being discussed in e-mails between Ms. Federici and Abramoff.

Abramoff also sent e-mails to aides about meetings with Griles that don’t appear on Griles’ office calendars. Ms. Federici and Abramoff regularly exchanged e-mails from 2001 through most of 2003, seeking meetings with Griles or favors from him. Griles routinely passed on departmental information to Federici, who passed it on to Abramoff, according to e-mails and other evidence obtained by the Senate committee.

Griles acknowledged in the plea agreement that he lied when he told the Senate committee that it was “outrageous and is not true” that Abramoff had any special access to him at Interior and that no “special relationship” existed between them. He also conceded that he misled the committee’s investigators when he told them his relationship with Abramoff was “no different” than with other lobbyists.

Griles now admits those statements were untrue because Abramoff was the only lobbyist he ever met while at Interior through a woman that Griles was dating. They met through Ms. Norton, for whom Ms. Federici once did campaign work.

Griles lied in trying to “conceal the true nature” of how he met Abramoff and “did not testify fully and truthfully” about his relations with Federici or Abramoff’s access to him, the documents say.

The Justice Department says Ms. Federici’s introduction gave Abramoff “more credibility as a lobbyist than Abramoff ordinarily would have had with Griles,” quickly putting them on terms “that ordinarily would have taken years to develop.”

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