Woman gives $10M of taxes to the poor

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 46

Woman gives $10M of taxes to the poor

NZPA correspondent Washington

A’ Bible-quoting real estate agent dubbed “Robin H.U.D.” is the star of a federal housing scandal in the United States where millions of dollars cannot be accounted for.

Marilyn Louise Harrell, aged 46, reckons during the last four years she has given SUSS.S million ($lO million) she stole from a federal housing agency to feed, clothe and shelter the poor in the Washington area. Ms Harrell said she is a “sinner” who now wants to repay the money to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.). “I have come forward, as one who loves the Lord, in an attempt to confess to the world that I am a sinner and I am sorry that I diverted Government funds," she said.

Her confession is just the tip of the iceberg in a scandal rapidly enveloping H.U.D. which for eight years, under the former President Reagan, was run by “Silent Sam” Pierce, so named for a profile so low the President once did not recognise him among a group of mayors visiting the White House.

The new head of the agency, Jack Kemp, a former Congressman, has called the department a swamp and vowed to pursue the charges of widespread influence-peddling and mismanagement during the Reagan era.

“I knew it was a swamp, but I just didn’t' know that it was at the level it is,” he said.

Apart from Ms Harrell’s problems, another housing agent in Texas has been indicted on charges of embezzling SUS2.S million ($4 million) from the sale of homes in the Dallas area, and the Justice Department has launched a full-scale criminal investigation into the agency. Weak accounting of sales of foreclosed properties has meant millions, possibly hundreds of millions, of dollars disappeared during recent years. Mr Kemp said he has been outraged to discover department officials had allowed millions of dollars to go “from the needy to the greedy.”

That is a reference to the revelations that millions of dollars in rent subsidies under a Federal low-income house building programme had gone to developers who retained high-priced Repub-

lican consultants to get what they wanted from Mr Pierce and his senior aides.

One of the influence peddlars was a former Reagan Interior Secretary, James Watt, who made eight phone calls and secured one 30 minute meeting with Mr Pierce to get lucrative low-income housing contracts for his clients. Mr Watt earnt some SUS3OO,OOO, ($NZ500,000) in fees for his brief telephone calls.

As for the beneficent Ms Harrell, she thought she could find a better use for the. money she collected on H.U.D.’s behalf.

When she withheld the first amounts, no-one seemed to notice because of the poor accounting procedures at the housing agency.

So she kept more and more, setting up a charity that created small businesses to employ the poor and provide the homeless with food, clothing, cars and houses.

“It was kind of scary, but there were so many hurting people,” she said. “I figured that as long as I was going to go to jail anyway, I would help a few people with the time I had left.”