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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 27, 1992                   TAG: 9203270404
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PROBE OF ROBB AIDES SWITCHES TO ELECTION LAW

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Sen. Charles Robb's former chief of staff and others violated federal election law in reporting an expense to search for a woman they wanted to question about the senator's private life while he was Virginia governor, according to sources.

At issue is a $500 check from campaign funds written to cover a plane trip to Boston taken by a Robb staffer in late 1990 to question the woman, who was alleged to have had a relationship with Robb in the mid-1980s, sources said.

The transaction was reported to the Federal Election Commission as expenses related to a fund-raiser. One aide has told authorities that the trip was part of a fact-finding mission by Robb aides hoping to limit the political damage caused by reports that Robb had affairs and attended parties where drugs were used while governor.

The examination of campaign finance reports marks a shift in a yearlong investigation that focused on the illegal use by Robb aides and supporters of a secretly taped phone conversation of Gov. Douglas Wilder.

Robb's private life has been the topic of scores of news reports in the last two years - most of them growing out of assertions by Tai Collins, a former Miss Virginia-USA, that she had an affair with Robb while he was governor. Robb has denied he had an affair with Collins.

Told of the latest development in the grand jury investigation, Robb issued a statement Thursday night that said, "I had never heard of the allegations you described before this week." He decline comment.

According to sources, Robert Watson, who at the time was political director of the Robb-led Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has told federal investigators that he was reimbursed $500 for his October 1990 plane trip to Massachusetts, where he met with the woman, who was a university student.

Federal law makes it a felony to lie to a government agency such as the FEC, with penalties as high as five years in prison and fines of up to $10,000. Laws governing lies on FEC forms dictate misdemeanor penalties of no more than one year or a fine of $25,000 or less.

Robb's former chief of staff, David McCloud, and William Hutchens, a political consultant and part-time employee of the Robb-for-Senate campaign committee, are the primary focuses of this twist in the probe, sources said.

by CNB