Meese May Switch Funds to Avoid Link to Wedtech
Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III may move his money out of a financial partnership because of disclosures that the businessman running the partnership once sat on the board of directors of Wedtech Corp., a spokesman for Meese said today.
Wedtech is a New York defense contractor, currently the focus of several criminal investigations, on whose behalf Meese interceded while he was counselor to President Reagan in 1982.
The man who sat on Wedtech’s board and consulted for the company while at the same time managing Meese’s money is W. Franklyn Chinn of San Francisco. Chinn’s connection to Wedtech was disclosed Thursday in the newspaper Newsday.
“The attorney general just learned of this aspect of Chinn’s relationship” with Wedtech, said Meese’s chief spokesman, Terry H. Eastland.
‘What to Do With the Money’
Eastland said Meese “now has under consideration” the question of “what to do with the money. He is now reviewing the question of whether or not he should maintain his investment.”
Eastland added that the attorney general does not know whether Chinn invested any of Meese’s money in Wedtech because the terms of the agreement with Chinn were that the financial manager would not inform Meese of where he was investing the money.
Chinn agreed April 30, 1985, to be a consultant for Wedtech, according to records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Less than a month later Meese invested from $50,000 to $100,000 in a limited blind partnership with Chinn’s firm, Financial Management International Inc.
Blind Partnership
Chinn was given the option of buying 75,000 shares of Wedtech’s stock for $9.25 a share when it was selling for $14 and he was given another option to buy an additional 37,500 shares when he was named to Wedtech’s board in August, 1985.
Meese placed the money in the limited blind partnership run by Chinn shortly after becoming attorney general in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest. The Senate Judiciary Committee had urged Meese to take the step and he agreed to do so.
The money, which was his wife’s inheritance, had been invested in a variety of stocks in companies which often are engaged in legal matters involving the Justice Department.
At a news conference April 6, Meese acknowledged that he ordered a review that led the White House to intercede for Wedtech and help it win a no-bid military contract for $32 million.
