Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 12, 1990 TAG: 9007120456
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"We need to be cracking down on the orgy of fraud and lawbreaking that occurred in the savings and loan crisis," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Wednesday as the crime bill was approved 94-6 and sent to the House.
The savings and loan provisions came as a last-minute addition to the crime package, which also would place curbs on nine kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons and make 34 federal offenses punishable by death.
Senate approval of more money, new weapons and fresh troops to aid prosecutors put pressure on the Bush administration to clean up the scandal.
Lawmakers said the S&L scandal was heating up as an issue on the congressional campaign trail.
The only lawmaker to oppose the provisions, Sen. William Armstrong, R-Colo., acknowledged that while calling the bill "a knee-jerk response to the outrage that is spreading across the country over the savings and loan crisis."
The plan provides for $162.5 million in each of the next three years to increase the number of agents and prosecutors pursuing S&L fraud and embezzlement cases.
Sponsors said the funds would allow the FBI to add 224 agents and 146 support aides while permitting U.S. attorneys' offices to bring on 205 more prosecutors plus 205 support workers and 50 auditors.
The Justice Department's tax, civil and criminal divisions would be fortified with 104 attorneys and 78 support workers in addition to those added after $50 million was appropriated in the current fiscal year.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and floor manager of the bill, estimated the overall price tag as $2 billion a year starting in 1991 and acknowledged that the source of the funds was uncertain.
The measure would also authorize $16 million for the Internal Revenue Service to expand its corps of investigators pursuing savings and loan cases.
A new financial institutions fraud unit would be established in the Justice Department. The measure also would establish strike forces composed of FBI agents, IRS investigators, bank examiners and prosecutors in cities hardest hit by the scandal.
Maximum prison time for bank fraud and embezzlement would be increased from 20 years to 30 years under the plan and mandatory minimums would be set.
Voting against the crime bill were Armstrong and Sens. David Durenberger, R-Minn.; Mark Hatfield, R-Ore.; Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.; Howard M. Metzenbaum, D-Ohio; and William Roth, R-Del.
by CNB