WASHINGTON -- U.S. prosecutors may file additional charges shortly against former PaineWebber Inc. Vice President Lance Wilson as they move to consolidate his case with that of two other individuals also indicted in a scandal involving the Housing and Urban Development Department.
At a status conference on the Wilson case yesterday, Roscoe C. Howard Jr., U.S. associate independent counsel, promised to produce within days a superseding indictment against Mr. Wilson and his co-defendant, Leonard Briscoe, a Florida housing developer. Mr. Howard has been working with Special Prosecutor Arlin Adams in the two-year-long investigation into abuses at HUD during the Reagan era.
Mr. Wilson served as chief of staff to former HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce in 1984 before joining PaineWebber's municipal bond department, which he left last June.
The latest indictment against Mr. Briscoe and Mr. Wilson would be the third since the case was filed last July in the U.S. District Court here. While Mr. Howard did not say whether it would contain new information, the second indictment did, and Martha Rogers, Mr. Wilson's attorney, said she was concerned that it might.
"We were anxious to set a trial date," but we don't know if there will be another indictment, she said. "There may be an attempt to add charges," she said.
In a 24-count indictment handed down in January, Mr. Wilson was charged with defrauding the government by falsely pledging PaineWebber's commitment to provide tax-exempt financing for Florida housing projects. The pledge allegedly was a ruse to obtain Urban Development Action Grants for the projects.
The new indictment is expected to be filed in connection with a motion to consolidate Mr. Wilson's and Mr. Briscoe's case with one pending in a U.S. District Court in Florida that involves Mr. Briscoe and Maurice David Steier, a Nebraska attorney.
In that case, Mr. Briscoe and Mr. Steier are charged with bribing a government official, former HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary DuBois Gilliam, to obtain grants. The defendants allegedly disguised one bribe payment as a $100,000 retainer to Mr. Steier for providing bond advice on one of Mr. Briscoe's housing bond deals.
"The two cases are essentially one and the same. We'd like to get them on the same track," Mr. Howard said. But Ms. Rogers protested the attempt to consolidate the cases and denied that Mr. Wilson had any involvement in Mr. Steier's case.
Barry Levine, Mr. Briscoe's attorney, also opposed the consolidation as an unwarranted delay. Mr. Levine said the prosecution was stalling and has been unable to "get its act together" in the two-year period since a congressional investigative subcommittee aired what appears to be most of the government's case against Mr. Briscoe and Mr. Wilson.
U.S. District Judge Stanley Harris, who is presiding over the case here, said the move to transfer the case from Florida was unprecedented but nevertheless granted the government the time it requested to do so.
