Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 28, 1992 TAG: 9203280302
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: BY ROB EURE AND MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Robert Watson, then political director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, flew to Boston to interview the woman and was reimbursed $500 from money listed on a Federal Election Commission filing as fund-raising expense.
The trip was part of an investigation that Watson, who has since resigned from Robb's staff, conducted into allegations about Robb's off-duty social activity at Virginia Beach when he was governor in the early 1980s.
Robb has consistently denied allegations that while governor he had an affair with a former beauty queen and attended oceanfront parties where drugs were used. He stood by those denials in a statement issued by his office late Thursday.
The woman Watson interviewed in Boston has declined to be interviewed about her acquaintance with Robb or meeting with Watson.
Watson, a former Robb aide who resigned last summer, testified Friday before a grand jury in Norfolk investigating Robb's campaign finances and his staff's involvement in the leaking last year of an illegally taped phone conversation. He declined to discuss his testimony.
The reporting of Watson's October 1990 trip apparently violates FEC rules and could be classified as a felony under statutes that prohibit "false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations" to a federal agency.
According to sources, David McCloud, then Robb's chief of staff, authorized the reimbursement through William Hutchens, a sometime Robb staffer. Hutchens received the check, ostensibly for fund-raising expenses, cashed it and turned the proceeds over to Watson for the trip, the sources said.
Hutchens, who along with Watson spent time in Virginia Beach investigating allegations surrounding Robb's activities, also declined to comment on the report Friday.
The misleading expense report is a new twist in the federal investigation that was believed to center on Robb's staff's involvement with an illegally taped a 1988 telephone conversation of Gov. Douglas Wilder.
In that recording, Wilder told a political supporter that allegations about Robb's socializing with women and attendence at drug parties at the oceanfront while he was governor would ruin his political career.
Watson, a former state director of Robb's Senate staff, pleaded guilty in January to a minor federal charge for his role in leaking the Wilder tape to The Washington Post. Last year, Robb's former press secretary Steven Johnson also pleaded guilty to the same charge.
No one else has been charged in connection with the probe.
by CNB