Word: sharpstown
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Price Daniel Jr., 33, son of a former Texas Governor and U.S. Senator, started his own legislative career as a moderate Democrat in the Texas house. When the Sharpstown State Bank scandals erupted three years ago, the young lawyer-politician led the way in drafting reform legislation for financial disclosure by state officials, public access to government documents and open campaign financing. At 29, he was elected speaker of the house. Last year Daniel resigned this post to become president of the constitutional convention charged with revising the state's 98-year-old constitution. Thanks to his image...
...course, the Sharp case has features worth writing about even if no state officials had been involved. For example, Sharp gave the Jesuit Fathers of Houston a tract of land in his residential community (named Sharpstown, of course) for a new preparatory school and made Father Michael Kennelly a director of the Sharpstown Bank. For this he was granted an audience with the Pope. Then Sharp borrowed $6 million from the Jesuits, none of which he ever repaid, and the Jesuits eventually went bankrupt. In addition, he used Kennelly as a middle-man for distributing some very dubious gifts...
...stock for a federal bank examiner who was checking Sharp's bank. The most serious charge that Wilson could not brush off was that he had paid for the installation of eavesdropping devices used against federal and state bank examiners investigating irregularities in the Sharp-controlled Sharpstown State Bank in 1967. While such bugging is not unlawful in Texas, it did break the security of an official investigation. Wilson insists that he did not know what...
...last week explaining his relationship with Sharp and denying any wrongdoing. But new information has come to light that could have more serious repercussions. TIME has learned that Wilson paid for the installation of eavesdropping devices used against federal and state bank examiners investigating irregularities in the Sharp-controlled Sharpstown State Bank...
...incident occurred in late 1967 when bank examiners were beginning to delve into Sharp's twisted financial affairs. The electronic bugs were concealed in offices used by the examiners poring over the Sharpstown State Bank's books. They were installed for a $2,500 fee by an electronics expert hired by Sharp. Wilson was then called by Joe Novotny, president of the bank, and told to pay the fee through his law firm. A memorandum Wilson wrote and initialed for his records on Nov. 6, 1967, detailed the transaction: "I received a telephone call from Joe Novotny...