Neil Bush Faces Public Hearing to Answer Regulators’ Charges

Savings and loan regulators Thursday released conflict-of-interest charges against President Bush’s son Neil and ordered him to answer them at a public hearing in September.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision alleged that the younger Bush, as a director of Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan Assn. in Denver, voted to approve more than $100 million in loans to or business deals with one of his business partners, Bill L. Walters.

Bush, in a reply, denied that he had violated his duty as a director and either denied the specific charges or said he “lacks sufficient present knowledge or information to form a belief as to the allegations.”

Both the administrative charges, filed in February, and the reply, filed a month later, were made public Thursday for the first time under a new thrift office policy. The House Banking Committee had obtained and released a preliminary draft of the charges in June.

An administrative law judge is scheduled to hear the Bush case on Sept. 25 in Denver before making a recommendation to Timothy Ryan, director of the thrift office.

James Nesland, an attorney for Bush, said a public hearing could be exploited for political purposes but expressed confidence that the judge would render a fair opinion.

Bush served on the board of Silverado from August, 1985, to August, 1988. It collapsed in December, 1988, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $1 billion. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The charges said Bush as a director of Silverado voted to approve loans totaling $45 million to Walters, an investor in and lender to Bush’s oil exploration company, JNB Exploration Co. Bush voted also to approve Silverado’s purchase of $58.4 million in properties from Walters, the document said.

The thrift office said that Bush had also inadequately disclosed his ties to Kenneth Good, a developer who defaulted on loans to Silverado.

Ryan will decide after reviewing the administrative hearing on the case whether to issue a cease-and-desist order against Bush, prohibiting him from violating regulations in the future.

From now on, the agency generally will release charges and conduct hearings in public for the officers of thrifts already closed or seized by the government. In order to avoid the danger of mass withdrawals by depositors, proceedings against open S&Ls; generally will continue to be conducted in private, Ryan said.