Judge Orders Deaver to Assist Alcohol Treatment Programs

Former Reagan White House aide Michael K. Deaver was ordered to assist local alcoholism treatment programs for his conviction on a charge of lying to Congress about his post-government lobbying, court papers showed Friday.

However, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson granted Deaver time to travel to Moscow this month to a superpower conference on alcoholism.

Deaver was convicted in December, 1987, for lying to Congress and a federal grand jury about his lobbying activities after leaving his job as then-President Ronald Reagan’s deputy chief of staff.

At his trial, he contended that the false statements he was accused of making were the product of alcoholism. In his book, “Behind the Scenes,” he recalled drinking as much as a quart of scotch each day shortly before leaving the White House in May, 1985.

Deaver was sentenced last September to three years of probation and 1,500 hours of community service. Jackson’s orders approved a plan for Deaver to serve that time at two alcoholism treatment programs.

The judge ordered Deaver to serve 1,000 hours at the treatment program run by the Community for Creative Non-Violence, a organization that operates shelters for the homeless in the nation’s capital.

He will serve the remaining 500 hours helping psychiatry professor William Flynn at nearby Georgetown University develop a program to teach medical students about the diagnosis and treatment of alcoholism.