Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 3, 1990 TAG: 9005030643
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/11 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
DuBois Gilliam, who has admitted taking bribes and rigging housing subsidies while Pierce's assistant, finishes a week of testimony Friday before a congressional subcommittee investigating scandals at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Reagan administration.
The panel's chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said Pierce should drop his use of Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and agree to appear immediately "to respond under oath to any of the testimony of Mr. Gilliam."
After denouncing Lantos' panel for "an insatiable appetite for publicity," Pierce's lawyers attacked Gilliam's credibility Wednesday.
"Mr. Pierce denies all allegations of wrongdoing and improper conduct," attorney Paul Perito said. "It is inconceivable that this subcommittee has accepted at face value the unsubstantiated testimony of an admitted cheat and liar who repeatedly violated the public's trust while at HUD."
He charged that Gilliam admitted to 10 to 12 additional felonies in his first two days of testimony before the panel - testimony for which he received a court's grant of immunity from further prosecution.
Gilliam is in the middle of an 18-month federal prison sentence for abuses of HUD programs.
Although Perito said Gilliam's motive in testifying was an early release from prison, Lantos and other members of the House Government Operations subcommittee on housing and employment said they found him a credible witness.
Lantos said Gilliam is eligible for parole at any time, and will have served out his sentence by the end of the year. While granted immunity, he risks a perjury conviction if he lies to the panel.
Pierce himself is under investigation by an independent counsel.
Gilliam said he, Pierce and others manipulated programs to direct project grants and lucrative subsidies to friends, sometimes before any formal applications were made.
Gilliam said he arranged for more profits for himself after he left HUD by securing subsidies for future business partners. He said he secretly removed incriminating documents from the agency in a medicine bag.
He linked President Bush, while vice president, to a 1985 federal grant of $500,000 for a Hispanic trade center in Kansas City, Mo.
Gilliam said he took unusual steps to award the grant in 1985 after Hector Barreto, then president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a political supporter of Bush and President Reagan, met with the vice president.
Gilliam said that after telling Barreto that his proposal for a feasibility study was not eligible for funding by HUD under the secretary's discretion program, Barreto met with Bush.
Later the same afternoon, Gilliam said, Pierce's executive assistant, Deborah Gore Dean, "indicated to me that she had received a call from the vice president's staff people indicating their support and wanted to get the project funded."
Barreto told The Kansas City Star that he met with Bush more than 25 times since 1980 and often discussed various projects that needed funding.
He said he specifically discussed the trade center with Bush at least two or three times, but he denied that he used his political connections to receive grant money.
Asked for comment on Gilliam's testimony, Steve Hart, a deputy White House press secretary, said: "We don't know anything about it."
by CNB