
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 19, 1992                   TAG: 9203190296
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOT-CHECK ISSUE DOESN'T ADD UP FOR REP. JIM OLIN

Throughout the check-bouncing scandal in Congress, legislators have been lugging out old records to see if they, like many of their co-workers, were guilty of overdrawing their accounts in the House bank.

Now, with his records and the House bank's balance sheets on the table, Rep. Jim Olin still isn't sure.

The Roanoke Democrat had never received word from the bank that he had insufficient funds, but a sheet of paper, handwritten by a bank teller, says that on July 25, 1988, Olin bounced a check for $100.

Olin's own records, which he pulled out of storage this week, show that he had $201.30 in his account at the time.

"The bank has no data available to support what the teller wrote down," Kathy Miller, Olin's spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

"We're not taking it any further. They can't prove it and we can't disprove it. This is the end of it, as far as we're concerned. It's not that big of a deal."

Representatives, Olin among them, have said that the bank didn't keep adequate records, and that deposited checks would sometimes not appear in their accounts until days later.

"Each of us has to find out where he stands," Olin had said earlier this week. "All members, me included, are not quite sure what we're going to find here."

Olin had received a letter from the sergeant-at-arms saying that the congressman had bounced no checks.

But on Wednesday, Olin learned of the handwritten bank record from the ethics committee, Miller said. He went to the sergeant-at-arms for more information.

The House bank was closed in December and the U.S. attorney's office had begun a preliminary investigation.

"The bottom line is, the congressman doesn't think it's worth the effort to go through the rigmarole to reconstruct this," Miller said. "There's no way it can be reconstructed. The bank has no data available."

Rep. Owen Pickett, D-Virginia Beach, and Rep. James Moran, D-Alexandria, also have discovered that they are among the 355 current and former House members who overdrew their accounts.

by CNB