Court Won’t Name Lawyer for Kuwait Scheme Suspect

A San Diego-area businessman accused of being a co-conspirator in a Kuwait-financed scheme to prod the United States into the Gulf War has been denied a bid for a court-appointed attorney. The judge says he makes too much money.

William R. Kennedy Jr. of El Cajon, a precious-metals dealer, is being held in the federal detention center in Littleton, Colo., on $1 million bond.

Kennedy, former U.S. ambassador to Bahrain Sam Zakhem of Lakewood, Colo., and Scott Stanley of North Falmont, Mass., face charges of evading federal income tax laws and failing to declare themselves agents of a foreign power. They were indicted Tuesday by a Denver federal grand jury.

At his court appearance Thursday, Kennedy requested a court-appointed attorney to expedite his release from detention before next week.

But federal authorities said that, contrary to Kennedy’s claim that he is broke, he continues to earn $5,000 to $6,000 a month from his commodities businesses. Kennedy said in a sworn affidavit that he has only $1,800 in cash and no stocks, bonds, notes, automobiles or other property.

Kennedy told U.S. Magistrate Donald E. Abram on Thursday that a court-appointed lawyer could help him win release from jail so that he could attend to some business scheduled next week.

“The major thing I have right now is two very important consulting jobs Monday and Tuesday,” Kennedy said. “If I lose those, it’s going to shake everything up.”

But Abram denied the request and scheduled a hearing next Tuesday to hear a government motion to detain Kennedy without bond. Prosecutors consider Kennedy, a businessman who has traveled abroad extensively, a risk to flee the country.

Zakhem, who was ambassador to Bahrain from 1986 to 1989, is free on $20,000 bond and is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in U.S. District Court in Denver.

Stanley, a former editor of the now-defunct Conservative Digest, will make his first court appearance July 30 in Denver. His wife died of cancer Thursday at their Massachusetts home.