A staffer-turned-lobbyist said the "endless expense account" and "nearly endless tickets" at "Team Abramoff" gave him and other former members of the lobbying team, including Kevin Ring and Jack Abramoff, greater access to public officials than other lobbyists.

"We had more tools than most," Todd Boulanger said in testimony Tuesday in the trial of Ring. "It was a tremendous advantage over some of the other folks in the lobbying world."

Boulanger said that Ring joked about his use of tickets and meals in lobbying. "Hello quid, where's the pro quo?" Boulanger reported Ring saying to him on several occasions.

Boulanger, who worked as a legislative assistant for former Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., before joining the lobbying team with Abramoff and Ring at Preston Gates & Ellis and then Greenberg Traurig, described the common practice within his team of avoiding disclosure of recipients of gifts, even internally.

"I will not put names on a receipt ever," Boulanger wrote in a 2002 e-mail to Abramoff regarding a Greenberg Traurig request to fill in information on accounting forms about guests at expensed lunches.

"I didn't want people to find out who we were taking out," Boulanger said in explaining the e-mail, saying the team's rule of thumb was that if a newspaper item about a member of the firm having lunch with a particular individual was going to be embarrassing, it was best not to "leave a paper trail."

He said he dismissed lobbying guideline manuals that were given to him and other lobbyists by the firms.

"Quite frankly, I didn't pay much attention to [the guidelines]," Boulanger said. "Nobody did."

Boulanger pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud in January, and he named Abramoff and Ring as co-conspirators in his plea. He is awaiting sentence.

Greg Harris of the Department of Justice also testified Tuesday afternoon about funding for a jail on behalf of a major "Team Abramoff" client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and other interactions with Ring. Boulanger's testimony will continue today.