NEW BCCI INDICTMENT IN WORKS PROSECUTORS SAY CONSPIRACY STARTED EARLIER THAN

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 10, 1993                   TAG: 9303100067
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
NEW BCCI INDICTMENT IN WORKS PROSECUTORS SAY CONSPIRACY STARTED EARLIER THAN
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they will seek a new indictment in the BCCI bank scandal alleging that a conspiracy by former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford and his law partner to defraud regulators began earlier than previously stated.
Lawrence Urgenson, a deputy assistant attorney general heading the federal prosecution, said the proposed indictment would allege that a conspiracy to mask the Bank of Credit and Commerce International's control of First American Bankshares Inc., began in the late 1970s instead of 1985. (First American's operations in the Washington metro area have since been purchased by Roanoke-based First Union National Bank of Virginia.)
Urgenson told U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green he hoped a grand jury would deliver the proposed indictment around April 15. Clifford and his law partner, Robert A. Altman, are scheduled to go on trial on the federal charges in Green's court on June 1.
Altman is to go on trial Monday in New York City on similar state charges.
New York state Supreme Court Justice John A.K. Bradley decided last week that Altman would be tried alone on the state charges while Clifford, 86, undergoes heart bypass surgery on March 22. Bradley said he will rule in October on whether Clifford has recovered enough from the operation to schedule his trial on the state charges.
Green on Tuesday again denied a bid by Clifford and Altman's attorney to postpone the federal trial.
But the judge said she found it "incredible" and "disingenuous" that the government had waited until now to disclose it would seek a new federal indictment to replace the original one handed up last July.
"It's just strange that in this short period of time [until trial] we're having all these flips and flops," she said. "There's always an adventure here."
Urgenson said the proposed new federal indictment would be based on grand jury testimony from a new, undisclosed witness that New York prosecutors plan to call in Altman's trial there.
Urgenson said the witness has "pertinent evidence" about the defendants' knowledge before 1985 about First American's true ownership "that we think makes the prosecution stronger."
Robert S. Bennett, Clifford's and Altman's attorney in the federal case, called the proposed new indictment grossly unfair and said he would challenge it.
"Our clients are entitled to know the charges they are facing," Bennett said. "If it's the witness I think they're talking about, he's been around a long time. Use him, but don't change the indictment at this late date."
Clifford - who was defense secretary under President Johnson and an adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Truman - and Altman were indicted in Washington and New York on the same day last July.
They are accused of helping the foreign-owned BCCI gain control of First American, the Washington area's largest bank holding company, then hiding the ownership from state and federal banking regulators.
Both were attorneys for BCCI at the same time that Clifford was First American's chairman and Altman was its president. Both have denied wrongdoing, saying they were duped by BCCI's top Pakistani officials.
BCCI pleaded guilty in January 1992 to federal racketeering charges and forfeited $550 million in U.S. assets, conceding that it illegally owned First American and three other U.S. banks.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB