Former Top Pierce Aide Misses Hearing; May Receive Subpoena

Lance H. Wilson, a former top official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development who later made millions of dollars through his HUD connections, failed to appear Friday to testify before a House subcommittee investigating the scandal-stained agency.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo), chairman of the panel, said that he would ask the subcommittee members next week to subpoena Wilson to testify on Sept. 27 about political favoritism and other abuses at HUD. He said that he also would seek all of Wilson’s HUD-related documents.

Wilson, described as the right-hand assistant to former HUD Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr., managed for months to avoid questioning by HUD’s inspector general about a housing rehabilitation program that generated six-figure fees for favored Republican consultants.

Delays Panel Appearance

Wilson also has delayed a requested appearance before the House Government Operations subcommittee on employment and housing since he first was requested to testify more than two months ago, Lantos said.

After agreeing to testify Friday, Wilson begged off on grounds that his attorney had been hospitalized. Yet he was quoted in the New York Times as saying: “I have nothing to hide.”

Lantos said that after he left the agency, Wilson was a member of a group of four former HUD officials who benefited from decisions approving seven projects under HUD’s Section 8 moderate rehabilitation program.

Those projects involved rehabilitation of 1,347 rental units at a cost of more than $133 million in rent subsidies and $29 million in tax credits, he said.

“It appears that Mr. Wilson received more than $2 million” as a result of his involvement in the projects through the intervention of his hand-picked successor at HUD, Deborah Gore Dean, Lantos said at the outset of the hearing.

In addition, the chairman said, Wilson received a 15% interest in 1985 in a $24-million Riviera Beach, Fla., project from developer Leonard Briscoe of Ft. Worth.

Backs Briscoe Grant

Two years earlier, Lantos said, Wilson had backed a $7-million HUD grant, also advocated by Briscoe, that was awarded over the objections of a HUD regional administrator and career government employees.

“Mr. Wilson is a prime example of how former HUD officials made millions of dollars as a result of HUD connections,” Lantos said.

“Mr. Wilson is my prime candidate for a criminal investigation,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.).