Word: abscam
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...tradition of catchy labels for FBI undercover operations-Abscam, Brilab, Miporn-a new one came to light last week that might be named Son of Abscam. An illegitimate son, to be sure: this sting victimized innocent, though gullible, California businessmen. It was run not by the FBI but by one of the agency's informers, who went into business on the side for himself...
...informer, Joseph B. Meltzer, 55, was recruited by the FBI soon after he was convicted in 1978 by a court in West Palm Beach, Fla., for possession of $100,000 in stolen securities. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The FBI sought his advice in conducting the Abscam bribery sting that eventually implicated seven Congressmen and Democratic Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey. While helping the FBI, Meltzer learned that, to lure politicians into the Abscam net, the FBI had set up a phony investment firm called Abdul Enterprises in New York City and invented a fictitious sheik...
...Abscam leaks also caused a premature closing of the Brilab sting. By then, though, the Brilab investigators had tapped the Washington telephones of I. Irving Davidson, a longtime capital public relations man who admits being a friend of Marcello's. The FBI taps overheard Davidson regularly calling some low-level assistants to various presidential aides to discuss his clients' problems...
...would anyone in the Justice Department leak news of the Abscam sting if it imperiled the simultaneous Brilab scam? One possible answer, according to some Justice Department sources, was that one or more of Abscam's key directors in the New York-New Jersey area were angry at what they considered a premature termination of the Abscam operation. Abscam was shut down, these New York officials apparently believed, just as it was about to reach more members of Congress than the eight already involved. Fearing a high-level coverup, the advocates of this theory claim, the lower-level officials...
...possible perjury. Said Senator William Proxmire: "It appears clear that Mr. Miller's testimony before this [Banking] Committee in 1978 was false and misleading." Civiletti has been slow in pushing the inquiry of his fellow Cabinet member and has not questioned several top Textron executives. Referring to the Abscam scandal, Senator Robert Dole quips: "Maybe the Justice Department is so busy with members of Congress that it doesn't have time for Cabinet officers." But without a special prosecutor the nagging question will remain: As chairman of Textron, was G. William Miller lax or lying...