Costly Lies

Lavelle is convicted of perjury

For months the charges of influence peddling, political favoritism and conflicts of interest ricocheted around Congress. By the time the scandal subsided, more than 20 Reagan Administration appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency had resigned under pressure. Last week one was found guilty in court: Rita Lavelle, former head of the agency's $1.6 billion Superfund to clean up toxic wastes, was convicted of perjury and obstructing a congressional investigation.

Those charges grew out of allegations that Lavelle had participated in EPA decisions involving her former employer, Aerojet-General Corp. In a signed statement sent to a congressional committee a year ago, Lavelle testified that she had removed herself from any dealings with Aerojet on June 18, 1982, the day after she learned the company had dumped wastes at the Stringfellow Acid Pits near Riverside, Calif. But other EPA officials testified that Lavelle had known about her old firm's involvement three weeks earlier and had even warned the company that the EPA was looking into the matter.

The jury acquitted Lavelle of a more far-reaching charge: lying about using her post to help Republicans get reelected. Despite evidence that she had a special "election track" for cleaning up certain dump sites in key congressional races, the jury believed her assertion that politics, while discussed in her office, did not affect her decisions. At the eight-day trial, Lavelle insisted that she had simply followed Administration policy by negotiating with polluters instead of engaging in lengthy court battles. The Administration, her lawyers charged, had made her a "scapegoat." After the verdict, Lavelle quietly wept. Said she: "I am very, very disappointed." She faces a maximum fine of $19,000 and up to 20 years in jail. qed This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.