WASHINGTON – A federal jury convicted a former White House official, David Safavian, of lying and obstructing justice in the first trial to come out of the influence-peddling investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Safavian, 38, was found guilty yesterday of three counts of making false statements and one count of obstructing justice. He was acquitted of another obstruction charge. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The verdict validates the Justice Department’s strategy of relying on e-mail messages to show that Safavian concealed the inside help he gave to Abramoff. Without calling Abramoff to the witness stand, prosecutors Peter Zeidenberg and Nathaniel Edmonds painted Safavian as a public servant led astray by lavish gifts.

“The e-mails certainly played a very large, maybe more important, role than they should have in this case,” Safavian’s attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Washington after the verdict. “Mr. Abramoff loomed large, and his absence loomed larger than his presence.”

Abramoff, 47, became the subject of an American government task force investigation after a series of articles in the Washington Post in 2004 about his financial dealings with partner Michael Scanlon and their work for American Indian tribes. In January this year, Abramoff pleaded guilty to defrauding the tribes and conspiring to corrupt public officials.

Scanlon and two other former congressional aides, who later worked for Abramoff, have also pleaded guilty to conspiracy. They are cooperating with prosecutors investigating other lobbyists and public officials including Rep. Robert Ney, a Republican of Ohio who traveled with Safavian on an Abramoff arranged golf trip to Scotland in 2002. Mr. Ney has denied all wrongdoing.

“Prosecutors now have a bigger sword to rattle when they are trying to convince witnesses to cooperate, or individuals to plead guilty,” said Joshua Berman, a former Justice Department lawyer and partner at Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP in Washington. “The prosecutors can essentially say to a reluctant target or subject, ‘Look, we’re prepared to try these cases. We did it with Safavian and are ready to do it with you.”‘

Ms. Van Gelder had fought the introduction of hundreds of e-mails into evidence, arguing that Abramoff should appear on the witness stand to show whether they were valid. The decision by U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman to allow the e-mails into evidence without any testimony by Abramoff will play a role in the fight to overturn the verdict, she said.

Safavian looked straight ahead and made no statement as Judge Friedman read the verdict, reached after more than four days of deliberation by the jury. The judge set a sentencing date for October 12 and a court date for August 24 to hear Ms. Van Gelder’s arguments in an expected bid to throw out the verdict.

“We’re still absolutely staunch” that Safavian did nothing wrong, Ms. Van Gelder said. “It is more difficult today than ever before to maintain your innocence and explain your innocence.”

The Safavian case stems from the August 2002 trip Abramoff arranged for a group to visit Scotland’s famed St. Andrews golf course. Abramoff added on three nights in London, where guests stayed in $500-a-night rooms at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Abramoff chartered a private jet at a cost of more than $91,000 for the nine person outing. Mr. Ney came with two of his aides, Will Heaton and Paul Vinovich. The group also included Abramoff’s son, two of his fellow lobbyists, and Christian activist Ralph Reed, a longtime friend.

At the time of the trip, Safavian was chief of staff at the General Services Administration, which oversees government land. Before the trip, he sent an e-mail to a GSA ethics official asking how he should treat the offer from Abramoff of a free ride on the 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 in a series of emails shown to the jury. Safavian said his statement was true because Abramoff, who worked for Greenberg Traurig LLP, didn’t have any GSA contracts or bids and wasn’t likely to have any.

Safavian also said he believed he had paid for the trip and his share of airfare with a $3,100 check written to Abramoff, a former colleague and golfing buddy. Prosecutors said Safavian should have known the vacation was far more expensive and contended that he accepted an improper gift.

When the GSA Inspector General’s office and later a Senate committee investigating Abramoff asked Safavian about the trip, prosecutors contended that Safavian lied again. The jury agreed.

“The message of this verdict is clear: In answering questions posed by Congress and by federal agencies, public officials have the same obligation as does the public for which they serve – to tell the truth,” Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said in a statement. “No one is above the law.”