Friend’s Loan Default, Gift Issues Could Hurt Wright

New troubles for House Speaker Jim Wright emerged Tuesday as a result of disclosures that he advocated leniency for troubled savings and loan associations at a time when a close friend and benefactor could have benefited from such relief.

Moreover, a Wall Street Journal report said that the special counsel investigating Wright’s affairs for the House Ethics Committee may have concluded that an estimated $100,000 in benefits received by Wright and his wife were unreported gifts that could constitute a violation of House ethics rules.

Under those rules, it is improper for members to receive gifts valued at more than $100 a year from anyone who has a direct stake in the outcome of legislation.

Wright, questioned about the disclosures, said he had not been aware that Ft. Worth developer George Mallick and his family were struggling to repay a $2.2-million loan to a troubled thrift in early 1987.

At the time, the Speaker was advocating legislation requiring federal regulators to show “forbearance” toward ailing S&Ls.; That mandate could have reduced pressure on the Mallicks’ lender to foreclose on the delinquent loan, allowing the family to repay the debt over a longer time period or on more favorable terms.

Instead, Mallick’s family defaulted on the loan, forcing the thrift to foreclose. The Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. eventually filed a lawsuit to recover $1 million of the loan proceeds.

But the embattled Speaker insisted that Mallick never had asked him for any legislative favors during the 30 years that they have known each other.

In pretrial testimony last year, Mallick said that federal regulators were partly responsible for the loan default because they gave S&L; officials little leeway to be as flexible with problem loans as they had been in the past.

The Wall Street Journal report said that the Ethics Committee is considering the possibility that Wright and his wife, Betty, received about $100,000 in unreported gifts from Mallick. The $100,000 estimate includes an $18,000-a-year salary received by Mrs. Wright from 1978 through 1984, her use of a 1979 Cadillac and the Wrights’ use of a Ft. Worth apartment.

Limit Put on Gifts

House rules forbid the acceptance of gifts of more than $100 from “any person . . . having a direct interest in legislation.”

In a meeting with reporters, the Speaker defended his relationship with Mallick and said that his wife had earned the money she received from the developer. He noted that in 1977, about the time that she started working for Mallick, House rules specifically excluded a spouse’s income from financial reporting requirements.

Even so, the latest developments caused concern among Wright’s defenders.

“It’s the first drop of blood,” acknowledged a House Democratic leader who has been one of the Speaker’s champions during a nine-month investigation by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is formally known.

However, Wright said that it is “ludicrous” to think that Mallick swayed his views on the need for “forbearance” by federal regulators in dealing with Texas S&Ls;, noting that he had adopted the same position as other Senate and House lawmakers from his state.

Mallick, who appeared in the Capitol Tuesday to give a deposition to the Ethics Committee on another investment with the Speaker, refused to comment, telling reporters: “I am sorry I cannot speak with you.”

Mrs. Wright, who was in her husband’s office Tuesday, also refused to discuss the issue.

The developments occurred as the committee neared the end of its deliberations on the controversial charges against Wright, first aired by Republicans but now causing concern among many Democrats as well.

Report Expected Soon

There have been growing doubts that the Speaker will be cleared by the 12-member panel when it issues a report, expected about mid-April, on its marathon preliminary inquiry into Wright’s financial affairs.

Aside from exoneration, the committee could approve a statement of possible violations by Wright, the House equivalent of an indictment or formal list of charges. Then Wright would be able to respond before the panel issued its verdict in the case.

Mallick increasingly has become a central figure in the investigation. He and his wife, Marlene, joined the Wrights in a business partnership known as Mallightco, an investment firm, with each family putting up $58,000.

Mrs. Wright’s salary from 1980 to 1984, along with the Cadillac she used, was financed by Mallightco. From 1978 to 1980, Mrs. Wright had received a similar salary from a Mallick-owned company.

Got $50,000 Profit

In addition, a real estate investment by Mallightco in Orlando, Fla., produced a profit of $50,000 for the Speaker and his wife.

In a separate transaction in 1985, Mallick and his wife personally guaranteed a loan of $2.2 million from Interwest Savings Assn. of Ft. Worth to Mallick Organization Inc., a company owned by their two sons, Michael and Stephen, for development of a shopping center.

Mallick Organization defaulted in September, 1987, on the $2.2 million plus $100,000 in unpaid interest. Interwest, already in receivership, foreclosed on the property the next month, valuing it at $1.3 million and suing the Mallicks in state court for the remaining $1 million.

The Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., the federal regulator of S&Ls;, refiled the case in federal court after Interwest was shut down by federal regulators last December. The Mallicks contend that the property was worth far more than the valuation put on it by the S&L; at the time of the foreclosure.