American Notes: Scandals

Remember the HUD scandal? After spending two years and $4 million, special prosecutor Arlin Adams last week landed his first indictment of a former top department official: Lance Wilson, once executive assistant to ex-Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel Pierce. Citing Wilson on 24 counts of fraud, conspiracy and false statements, a federal grand jury charged him with conspiring, after he left HUD for an investment firm, to steer $46 million in grants intended for poor urban areas to three housing projects developed by his business partner, Texan Leonard Briscoe.

Adams has been criticized for moving too slowly in investigating charges of influence peddling at HUD in the Reagan era. Sources say he is far from handing down decisions on other major players at HUD, including Pierce and former executive assistant, Deborah Gore Dean. Meanwhile, Dean, who allegedly awarded millions in grants to politically well-connected Republican consultants, has opened an antiques shop in Georgetown to help pay her lawyers.