Weldon Probe Widens

Feds raid 6 spots in Pa., Fla.; congressman denies wrongdoing

17 Oct 2006 // MOVING SWIFTLY in a criminal investigation involving U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, federal agents yesterday raided six locations in Philadelphia, in Delaware County and in Florida.

The probe apparently is focused on links between the congressman's official activities and clients of his daughter's lobbying firm, first reported in 2004 by the Los Angeles Times.

Weldon denied any wrongdoing by himself or his daughter.

Yesterday, the FBI carried away boxes of potential evidence from the homes of the two founders of the lobbying business - Karen Weldon, 32, who lives in Queen Village, and longtime Republican power broker Charles P. Sexton Jr., 70, who lives in Springfield, Delaware County.

Other warrants were served on the Media offices of the lobbying firm, North American Solutions Inc.; the Philadelphia office of attorney John J. Gallagher, a longtime friend of the Weldons who reportedly introduced Karen Weldon to one of her clients, a Russian aerospace firm; the Jacksonville offices of a Russian-based conglomerate known as Itera International Energy Corp., and a $7.5 million beachfront mansion in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., apparently owned by an Itera-related company.

The Republican congressman, already locked in the toughest re-election fight of his 20-year career in Washington, had previously brushed off questions about the L.A. Times disclosures, telling reporters that they'd been investigated and dismissed by the House Ethics Committee.

But the events of the last four days - the disclosure of the federal investigation by McClatchy Newspapers last Friday, and yesterday's sweeping search warrants - prompted Weldon to hold a 16-minute news conference late yesterday afternoon.

Weldon denied any wrongdoing by himself or his daughter, but refused to answer specific questions about services he reportedly performed for clients of his daughter's firm.

"I would absolutely never use my position to help anyone in an unusual way," Weldon said. "... My daughter doesn't need my help now, she never has, she's a very capable professional."

The congressman said his daughter did not intend to answer questions from the news media. Sexton did not return a call from the Daily News.

The L.A. Times reported in February 2004 that Weldon had gone to bat for at least three of the lobbying firm's clients - a Serbian family seeking U.S. visas in spite of ties to accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic; a Russian aerospace manufacturer known as the Saratov Aviation Plant, for which Weldon pitched an idea to the U.S. Navy, and Itera, a company that obtained vast natural-gas fields in the breakup of the Soviet Union and was looking to expand its gas, timber and real-estate holdings in the U.S.

Weldon said that after the article appeared, he asked the House Ethics Committee to look at the situation. "As far as I know, we gave them everything that they could have asked for," and subsequently he received a letter from the committee "closing the case," he told reporters yesterday.

Weldon declined to produce a copy of the letter yesterday. The committee's staff and chairman, Rep. Richard "Doc" Hastings, a Washington state Republican, have failed to return calls about the Weldon matter for the past week.

Weldon said it appeared that the U.S. Justice Department had decided to look into the same issues.

He said he respected the Justice Department and the FBI, and intended to cooperate fully. But he questioned the timing of the investigation.

"I don't know who's behind it. All I'm saying is I have to be suspicious that three weeks before an election, this would take place," he told reporters. "... This case is two-and-a-half-years old. They could have requested me to answer questions at any time over the past two-and-a-half years, or after the election was over."

In fact, a nonprofit D.C. group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wrote a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft in April 2004, citing the L.A. Times stories and urging that the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section investigate whether Weldon had violated federal bribery laws.

CREW's deputy director, Naomi Seligman Steiner, said yesterday that the group had seen no sign that the Justice Department was interested until news of the federal probe broke last week.

"We heard about it when everyone else did," Steiner said. "We're wondering that ourselves - why it took so long."

Weldon noted that CREW's executive director, Melanie Sloan, used to work for U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who could become a committee chairman if Democrats take over Congress in November.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this district could swing control of the Congress," Weldon said. He added that one of CREW's board members, Philadelphia attorney Daniel Berger, has donated $4,200 to the campaign of Joseph A. Sestak, a retired admiral running against Weldon, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars to other Democratic candidates.

Reminded by a reporter that the Justice Department is now run by Republicans, Weldon snapped: "I understand that. I'm not stupid. I may have offended some people. I've been known to do that from time to time in Washington, in both parties."

He said the investigation would obviously affect his campaign.

"I'm sure that my opponents are probably having a lot of glee, but that's life," Weldon said. "Life goes on, and this is not the end of the world... . Me even being in Congress, I've enjoyed the job, I've enjoyed being in public life. And given it my hardest effort, consistently, helped thousands of people... .

"I've never asked for anything for anyone in return. I went to Congress poor and I'll leave Congress poor."