Advertisement

Former HUD Aide Testifies Today

Share
From Associated Press

A former top aide to Samuel R. Pierce Jr. will begin testifying today about how Pierce decided who got federal grants during his tenure as the Ronald Reagan Administration’s housing secretary.

Dubois L. Gilliam, a former deputy assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is serving an 18-month prison sentence on federal conspiracy charges involving abuse of HUD programs.

The New York Times, citing 12 hours of interviews with Gilliam, said he is prepared to contradict Pierce and assert that politics touched virtually every major HUD program in the Reagan years.

Advertisement

“Politics was a big part of how HUD operated, and Pierce was involved in all of that,” the newspaper quoted Gilliam as saying. “So was the White House. There was influence from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The newspaper said Gilliam made no direct allegations of criminality against any HUD employee during the interviews.

It quoted Pierce’s lawyer--Bob Plotkin--as questioning whether a convicted felon would tell the entire truth and said he was “absolutely certain that Samuel Pierce did not break the law and did not do anything improper.”

Gilliam is eligible for parole next month and will testify before the Lantos committee under a grant of immunity under which nothing he says can be used against him in additional criminal proceedings.

Pierce has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to testify before the committee probing allegations of influence peddling, mismanagement and political favoritism in federal subsidies.

Advertisement