Ethics Panel Studying Wright’s Role in Nursing Home Venture

Payments received by House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) to assist his $100,000 investment in a nursing home venture may become a new focus of his ethics investigation in Washington.

It is not yet clear, however, whether the payments--estimated at $17,000 by a lawyer in the case--amounted to favored treatment of Wright by the head of the nursing home concern, Texas businessman T. R. Jewell.

Jewell, for his part, has told reporters that his company loaned money to Wright to cover the interest Wright owed to the American Bank of Arlington, Tex., from which Wright had obtained a $100,000 loan in 1983 to buy into Jewell Enterprises Inc.

Records of the bank loan, which Wright has since repaid, have been subpoenaed by the House Ethics Committee, sources here said.

Jewell said he provided financial assistance to some other shareholders besides Wright, but not to all of them. He declined to give names. In any event, Wright’s investment turned sour in 1985, when Jewell Enterprises filed for bankruptcy.

David F. Chappell, an attorney for 10 other investors in the now-defunct firm, said that his clients never were able to get any financial assistance from Jewell.

“I don’t think any of these shareholders knew anything about what Jewell was providing to the Speaker,” Chappell said in an interview. “However, my clients do not have a perception of any impropriety on the Speaker’s part.”

John Bonds, an attorney who represented Wright in the bankruptcy proceedings, said that Jewell’s payments of about $17,000 to Wright were not to cover interest but rather to help compensate Wright for unexpected tax losses that resulted from his investment.

“One check went directly to Wright and one went to the bank,” Bonds said. “Added together, they defrayed the cost to Wright of tax liabilities and the consideration that he never got any tax benefits.”

Wright was due compensation from the company because he was deprived of tax benefits that normally should have resulted from his partnership investment, Bonds said. The lawyer said other shareholders received tax advantages because Jewell Enterprises had taken accelerated depreciation for a year or two before it began to fail. But Wright was not a shareholder at the time.

Ultimately, Wright was forced to return most of what he received from the company because of the bankruptcy proceedings, and he incurred other debts as well, attorneys said.

Jewell told reporters that he offered the investment opportunity to Wright after meeting him during a “courtesy call” with a delegation of nursing home operators. Wright was not Speaker at the time.