Aide to Wright Quits in Wake of Assault Story

John P. Mack, top aide to embattled House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), resigned Thursday in an effort to save Wright and House Democrats further embarrassment from newspaper accounts of his brutal assault on a young woman 16 years ago.

The resignation clearly was designed to head off a growing public protest against Wright and Mack by many irate women--including House Republican women--who objected to a man with his criminal background earning $89,500 a year on the public payroll.

But Mack’s departure underscored just how seriously the Speaker has been weakened by allegations of ethical wrongdoing. Although Mack’s crime has long been known to most House members, it had never sparked an outcry until Wright got into trouble.

Mack also is a close friend of Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), the House majority whip, who has strongly defended Mack against criticism, even describing him as being like “a brother.” Coelho and Mack have investments in a computer software firm in Merced. Separately, Coelho’s personal investments have come under some scrutiny recently as a result of his 1986 investment in junk bonds marketed by Drexel Burnham Lambert, the controversial brokerage firm.

The Mack controversy arose last week when Pamela Small, the victim of Mack’s crime, gave an interview to the Washington Post detailing how in 1973--when Mack was 19--he beat her on the head with a hammer, stabbed her in the breast with a steak knife, slashed her throat and left her for dead in the back of her own automobile.

Now 35, Mack said in a written statement that he is “truly sorry” for the attack, which he said would always cause him to feel remorse. “I wish I could rewrite the past,” he declared, “but unfortunately I can’t.”

Family Connection

The Speaker, in a separate statement, said he was unaware of the brutal details of Mack’s crime when he hired the young man as a $9,000-a-year filing clerk in the mid-1970s. At the time he was hired, Mack, who had served 27 months of a 15-year sentence for the crime, had a family connection to Wright. Wright’s daughter was married to Mack’s brother.

Wright said he offered Mack a job on the recommendation of his daughter, who had known Mack in high school. He said he also was assured by the sheriff in nearby Fairfax County, where Mack had been jailed, that he had been “a model rehabilitative prisoner.”

The Speaker indicated that he offered Mack the job after he had served his jail sentence. According to Small’s account, however, Wright offered him the job even before he was sentenced and Mack’s attorney mentioned it repeatedly in an effort to win a lighter term for his client.

Wright said he accepted Mack’s resignation with “sadness and regret,” but Mack said he had been thinking about leaving the Speaker’s office for another job before this controversy arose.

Although the case had no direct connection to the charges of ethical misconduct pending against Wright, it clearly compounded the Speaker’s problems. Many House members reported receiving telephone calls from women constituents who were outraged by the story and related it to the Speaker’s other problems.

Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.) said many people grasp the import of the Mack case more readily than they do the complex ethics rules case against Wright. “I think this has tended to personalize the Speaker’s problems,” he said.

In addition, a number of Republican women House members, led by Rep. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Me.), were preparing a letter to Wright on the subject when Mack’s resignation was announced. Snowe said the women legislators believed that a man with Mack’s criminal background should not be involved in writing the law.

“He violated the law; he didn’t serve his sentence, and he didn’t make restitution,” she said.

The Post account said the attack had no apparent motive. Mack, then an employee of a suburban Washington import store, brutally attacked the woman customer after they went into a storeroom to look at window blinds she had said she wanted to buy.

Coelho also came under criticism from some House members for his strong defense of Mack. But Coelho declined to discuss the matter Thursday after Mack resigned. Instead, he issued a one-sentence statement saying: “I regret what’s happened to John Mack and his family, but I respect his decision.”

Two years ago, Coelho was quoted in the Ft. Worth (Tex.) Star Telegram as saying that Mack first told him of his crime during a dinner together. He said he then responded with “concern for John” and believed that Mack will always pay a price for the crime.

Their financial disclosure statements say Mack and Coelho have invested money in a limited partnership in Merced known as DMA, a firm that supplies computer software to dairy farms. The stock held by both is valued between $5,000 and $15,000.

Mack, who grew up and still lives in suburban Virginia, also has invested in rental apartment units in Merced, Coelho’s hometown.

David Dryer, spokesman for Coelho, said none of these investments resulted from the friendship between Mack and Coelho. Instead, he said, Mack has made the investments on the advice of Don Ozenbaugh, a Merced accountant that he and Coelho use. He said Ozenbaugh met Mack at a Democratic fund-raiser several years ago.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported Thursday that Wright was encouraged to invest $100,000 of borrowed money in a Texas nursing home chain after the operator of the firm, T. R. Jewell, came to Washington to lobby the Speaker. Jewell, who could not be reached for comment, also reportedly introduced Wright to the officials of a bank where he borrowed the money.

Mark Johnson, spokesman for the Speaker, denied the suggestion that Wright sought to take financial advantage of a person seeking his support for legislation. “Wright was the scam-ee, not the scam-er,” he said.