Refuses to Relinquish Subpoenaed Documents : Group Tied to LaRouche Draws Fines

A group tied to Lyndon H. LaRouche that financed placing the AIDS measure on the Nov. 4 California ballot is being fined daily in Virginia and Boston for refusing to provide authorities with subpoenaed documents, it was reported Thursday.

The Associated Press said that Caucus Distributors Inc., a nonprofit New York firm that distributes LaRouche publications, faces $250-a-day fines in Virginia after being held in contempt by a federal judge. In that case, the Federal Election Commission sued to obtain records about possible LaRouche involvement in the 1982 campaign of an opponent to Rep. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.).

In Boston, several LaRouche groups, including Caucus Distributors, face daily fines of $45,000 for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents to a federal grand jury investigating credit card fraud. U.S. Attorney Dan Small said the fines there total more than $18 million.

The groups are suspected by prosecutors of obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest-free loans from banks by altering small credit card donations or purchases from people who were solicited to buy LaRouche magazines, often at airports, according to published reports in Boston. The money was ultimately returned, without interest, after the consumers complained about the unauthorized charges.

Campaign disclosure reports filed in California show that Caucus Distributors donated $201,286 to the Prevent AIDS Now Initiative Committee, the LaRouche-affiliated committee that gathered signatures to place Proposition 64 on the ballot.

That was nearly all of the $219,000 that the sponsors spent to qualify the initiative.

Proposition 64 would list AIDS as an infectious, contagious disease, despite a lack of medical evidence that the AIDS virus can be transmitted except through sexual contact or the exchange of blood.

Listing AIDS as an infectious disease could require health officials to quarantine AIDS victims and bar an unknown number of potential victims from schools and restaurant kitchens.

So far the measure has gained the support only of the La-Rouche-affiliated sponsors and Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton).

Opponents include virtually all the state’s medical and health organizations, both California U.S. senators, Pete Wilson and Alan Cranston, as well as Cranston’s election rival in November, Rep. Ed Zschau, and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.