Ex-Heckler Aide Indicted in Fraud Case

C. McClain Haddow, former chief of staff to the secretary of health and human services, was indicted Wednesday on charges of fraudulently obtaining more than $30,000 from a charitable foundation and of taking kickbacks on contracts to write speeches for former Secretary Margaret M. Heckler.

In a seven-count indictment, Haddow was charged with secretly routing $33,540 in payments from the nonprofit T. Bear Foundation, which he helped create while at the Department of Health and Human Services, to a Senate credit union account that Haddow controlled with his wife, Alice.

As a health department official, the indictment said, Haddow urged numerous health care corporations to contribute to the foundation, which was created to promote hand-washing by children. He then pocketed 90% of the foundation’s monthly payments to Michelle Magoon, a Haddow associate who was hired as a fund-raiser at his behest, according to the indictment.

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury here, resulted from an investigation by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section that was set off by a report in the Washington Post last June. The Post reported that Alice Haddow had secretly received more than $30,000 in T. Bear Foundation payments without the knowledge of foundation officers and that the money was routed through Magoon.

Haddow’s attorney, Brian P. Gettings, a former U.S. attorney in Alexandria, Va., said Wednesday that Haddow is “guilty of no wrongdoing.”