Former veteran White House official
charged wiffi embezzling from press
WASHINGTON — The former
White House travel office chief was
charged Wednesday with embezzling
from news organizations in a case
that renews debate over the 1993 fir
ing of employees who arranged for
reporters to travel with the president.
A federal grand juiy indictment
said Billy R. Dale, a veteran of more
than 30 years at the White House,
pocketed more than $68,000 that
news organizations paid to cover their
reporters’ travel expenses.
But in two counts of embezzle
ment and conversion, the grand jury
only charged Dale with stealing more
than $33,297.95. The grand jurors
said some of the $68,000 was taken
more than five years ago — a statute
of limitations prohibits charges about
actions that old.
Justice Department spokesman
Carl Stern refused “for reasons of le
gal strategy” to specify the exact
amount prosecutors will try to prove
Dale converted to his own use.
Dale’s attorney, Steven
Tabackman, was out of town Wednes
day, but had denied Monday that Dale
took any money and pledged to mount
a vigorous trial defense.
Tabackman said he could show
Dale substituted his own cash for of
fice checks he deposited in his per
sonal bank account if Dale’s hand
written ledgers, now missing from his
White House office, can be found or
if expense payment records can be
obtained from businesses overseas.
At the White House, press secre
tory Dee Dee Myers, noting the case
is in court, limited her reaction to
pointing out that the administration
revamped the travel office last year
and cooperated with the investiga
tion.
Tabackman has suggested his cli
ent was being made a scapegoat be
cause of embarrassment the White
House suffered over the firing of Dale
and six subordinates. He vowed to
question everyone involved in the fir
ing, which could produce testimony
from Hillary Rodham Clinton.
According to previous inquiries,
she was briefed about the travel of
fice and once told a lop White House
aide to get “our people” into the of
fice. She said she could not recall the
remark.
Republicans contend that the in
quiries by then-White House chief of
staff Mack McLarty and by the con
gressional General Accounting Office
were not critical enough. They plan
hearings on the case next spring by
the House Government Operations
Committee.
The grand jury charged that from
February 1988 through April 1991,
Dale deposited 55 checks totaling
$54,188.61 in his own Maryland
National Bank account instead of
putting them in the travel office ac
count at Riggs National Bank.
The grand jury charged him with
embezzling only 41 of the 55 checks
because the other 14 checks arc too
old to be included. It identified only
six of the 41 checks “embezzled and
converted by Dale,” totaling
$19,297.75.
The government said the checks
included payments by news organi
zations for reporters’ expenses and
refund checks from businesses that
provided services on trips.
In a second count, the grand jury
charged that between February 1992
and January 1993, Dale cashed
checks on the Riggs travel office ac
count to replenish the travel office’s
petty cash fund, but instead converted
$14,000 of the cash to his own use.
The charges carry a maximum
penalty of 20 years in prison and
$500,000 in fines.
Dale, 57, of Clinton, Md., took
charge of the travel office in 1982.
An audit in May 1993 found the
office kept sloppy records. White
House lawyers called in FBI officials
to announce an investigation and
later were criticized by McLarty for
giving the appearance of trying to
pressure the FBI.
Further controversy arose when it
was learned initial complaints about
the office came from Catherine A.
Cornelius, a 25-year-old distant
cousin of President Clinton, who
worked there and wanted to run it,
and from Hollywood producer Harry
Thomason, a friend of President
Clinton who wanted travel office
business for his air charter company.
Cornelius and Thomason remain
under investigation but are not ex
pected to be charged, according to a
Justice Department source, who de
manded anonymity.
Five of those fired were rehired
elsewhere in government; a sixth re
tired.
The grand jury did not say how
Dale spent the allegedly stolen
money.
Tabackman has said prosecutors
may point to a Virginia vacation
home and boat Dale acquired while
being paid about $75,000 a year. But
he said Dale and his sons built much
of the house themselves, and that
Dale took out a mortgage for the
house and borrowed $9,000 to buy the
boat.
“You don’t borrow $9,000 for a
boat if you’ve got $55,000 available,”
Tabackman said.
News...
in a Minute
Potoroo rises again
PERTH, Australia — A small marsupial thought extinct for 125
years has been found on Western Australia's southern coast.
Researchers found the animal, Gilbert’s potoroo, last week in a
nature reserve east of Albany, 255 miles south of Perth.
The last recorded sighting of the animal was in the same area in
1869.
Environment Minister Kevin Minson said five of the marsupials
— two adult males, a juvenile male and an adult female with a pouch
young — were found alive in traps last week.
Gilbert’s potoroo grow to about a foot, weigh about 2 1/2 pounds,
have rat-like tails, a snout and a furry coat of gray, reddish brown and
black.
They were first identified by Europeans in 1840. A search for the
marsupials in 1975 didn’t turn up any, Minson said.
Friends don’t let friends drive sleepy
WASHINGTON — Drowsy drivers may cause as many accidents
as drunken drivers — 30 percent of fatal crashes in one study — and
at least one American in every 20 has caused an accident by nodding
off at the wheel, sleep researchers say.
Don’t blame boring highways and long drives for drowsing and
driving, said Dr. Thomas Roth, a researcher at Henry Ford Hospital in
Detroit. Instead, he said Wednesday, blame a stubborn unwillingness
to submit to slumber and a hyperactive American lifestyle with inad
equate time for sleep.
Research presented at a conference on the problem of drowsy driv
ers showed that more than a third of all fatal accidents in some loca
tions can be attributed to sleepy drivers.
No ‘Star Wars’ for defense secretary
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary William Perry rejected Re
publican calls for the revival of a “Star Wars” missile defense system
Wednesday, saying he prefers to put money into local, battlefield anti
missile defenses.
Perry said his upcoming budget, to be made public early next year,
would include a “robust program” for both sea-based and ground-based
anti-missile defense systems.
The secretary said there was no current threat to the United States
that would justify building such a huge missile defense system. TTie
Pentagon is doing enough research to build such a system in lime to
meet the threat, should one materialize, he added.
The defense secretary, in an interview with news service reporters,
also turned aside top GOP lawmakers’ calls for a pullout from Haiti as
soon as possible and criticism that the effort was costing U.S. taxpay
ers too much.
GOP may redefine
goals of the Fed
WASHINGTON — Alan Greenspan made
it clear Wednesday that the Federal Reserve is
ready to push interest rates still higher to battle
inflation, despite Democrats’ warnings that
such a move would heighten the risk of a re
cession.
But in a hint of the political changes in the
ofiing, Republicans who will be taking con
trol of Congress next year praised the Fed’s
resolve and said they wanted to rewrite its le
gal charter to remove full employment as one
of the goals of monetary policy.
Such a change, if approved, would mark a
dramatic revision of the 1978 law under which
the Fed operates, which requires the central
bank to pursue the goals of maximum employ
ment, stable prices and moderate, long-term
interest rates.
Democrats immediately attacked the pro
posal by Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla. who is in
line to become chairman of the Joint Economic
Committee next year, saying it would allow
the Fed to be even more narrowly focused on
fighting inflation than it is now and that such
a policy would ignore the economic misery
caused by rising unemployment.
Survey reveals perceptions of poverty
WASHINGTON—Most Americans be
lieve people on welfare collect more than
they actually do and think the poverty line
should be higher than it is, a survey indi
cates. People seem to see welfare payments
as “pouring water into a leaky bucket” but
they want to fix the bucket rather than stop
pouring, says the survey’s sponsor.
The study, conducted for an upcoming
PBS television documentary on American
poverty programs by the independent Cen
ter for the Study of Policy Attitudes, found
that 84 percent agreed that society has a
“moral obligation” to help the poor, and that
80 percent thought government should do
something about poverty.
“Even among white males, the demo
graphic group who made the strongest shift
in the last election, 75 percent agreed that
the government has a responsibility to try
to eliminate poverty,” the study said.
The study found wide chasms between
the way people view federal anti-poverty
programs of the 1960s War on Poverty, and
what they think should be done about them.
For example, 75 percent said they feel
government programs are rife with waste
and do little to help poor people, but only
10 percent wanted tb eliminate welfare.
Eighty-five percent supported replacing
welfare with programs that create jobs for
poor parents who want work but can’t get
it — yet only 21 percent wanted to cut the
amount spent on current programs.
“They do perceive that there’s a high
level of waste and fraud in poverty pro
grams. Even with that, they still don’t want
to decrease spending,” said Steven Kull,
director of the center, which conducted the
study for the producers of “America’s War
On Poverty,” which will be broadcast Jan.
16-18.
Kull, a faculty member at the University
of Maiyland, cautioned that the survey re
sults did not mean there is wide public en
thusiasm for anti-poverty programs.
“There ’s a good deal of frustration. But they
think it’s morally wrong to just pull the
plug,” he said.
Fifty-eight percent of those polled
thought the federal poverty line should be
higher than its current income limit of
$14,763 a year for a family of four. Only 7
percent felt it should be lower. The average
income limit suggested by those polled was
$ 17,856,21 percent higher than the present
level.
When asked how much they believe a
single mother with two children receives in
welfare payments, the average response was
$685 a month, the study said. The national
average for state and federal payments is
$366 monthly.
Ninety-two percent said reducing pov
erty would be a good economic investment.
Seventy-three percent said increasing aid
to the poor would cut racial tension and
crime.
As for financing such aid, 58 percent said
the wealthy should pay more in taxes for
poverty programs, while 34 percent said the
wealthy should not be required to pay more.
The poll, conducted Oct. 13-16, surveyed
900 Americans at random, 23 of whom gave
in-depth interviews. The margin of error is
plus or minus 3.5 to 4 percentage points.
Justice Department charges Ohio man
collaborated with Nazis in Lithuania
WASHINGTON — The Justice
Department moved to strip an Ohio
real estate agent of his U.S. citizen
ship Wednesday on grounds he alleg
edly persecuted Jews and others while
serving in the Nazi-sponsored
Lithuanian Security Police during
World War II.
Citing captured records in the
Lithuanian Central State Archives,
the department’s Office of Special
Investigations, which hunts Nazis in
this country, charged that Algimantas
Dai tide, 73, bn at least one occasion
participated in the arrest of Jews who
had escaped from barbed-wire-en
closed ghettos in the province around
Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital.
The records show those Jews were
jailed, the government said, noting
that in such cases Jews routinely were
executed or otherwise punished.
A recording machine answered
the phone at Dailide’s home in
Brccksvillc, a suburb 12 miles south
of Cleveland where, OSI chief Eli
Rosenbaum said, Dailide still owns
and operates a small realty business.
Messages for Dailide were not imme
diately returned.
In a complaint filed in U.S. Dis
trict Court in Cleveland, the govern
ment said the Lithuanian Security
Police, or Saugumas, acted as a sub
ordinate component of the German
Security Police and Security Service
and had duties that paralleled those
of the German Gestapo.
The Saugumas assisted Nazi oc
cupying forces in enforcing the per
secution of Vilnius Jews by arresting
ghetto escapees and turning them
over for execution, the government
said.
NelSfaSkan
Managing Editor
Assoc. News Editors
Opinion Page Editor
Sports-Editor
Arts & Entertainment
Editor
Editor Jeff Zeisny
472-1766
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Jeffrey Robb
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Tim Pearson
Matt Woody
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