Ex-HUD Aide Dean Found Guilty in Influence Scandal : Ethics: Payoff scheme dates back to Reagan Administration. Sources say prosecutors lack evidence for case against her boss, Secretary Pierce.

Deborah Gore Dean, once a high-ranking aide in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was convicted Tuesday on 12 counts of fraud, taking a payoff and lying to Congress in an influence-peddling scandal dating to the Ronald Reagan Administration.

The federal jury verdict against Dean, 38, who was executive assistant to former HUD Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr., represents the 11th and perhaps last major conviction to be obtained in a three-year investigation by a court-appointed independent counsel.

After three days of deliberations following a six-week trial, a jury of four men and eight women convicted Dean of helping award millions of dollars in housing grants to private developers represented by politically well-connected consultants--mostly Republicans--who earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.

Pierce, who was Dean’s boss, has never been charged and remains under investigation. Former Philadelphia judge Arlin Adams, the independent counsel who has investigated the scandal, and his staff attorneys originally expected that the conviction of so many subordinates would lead to a case against Pierce. But sources close to the investigation now believe there is insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against him, one source said Tuesday.

Dean has said publicly for months that she knew of no wrongdoing by Pierce and had been offered a plea agreement if she could testify against him. Moreover, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who presided at Dean’s trial, received a government memorandum on Oct. 5 that tended to exonerate Pierce.

“Neither the government nor defendant Dean has presented sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Secretary Pierce was a member of any of the conspiracies with which defendant Dean is charged in this case,” the government’s memo said.

Dean, who is a second cousin of Vice President Al Gore and a niece of one-time Maryland Republican leader Louise Gore, faces maximum possible punishment of 57 years in prison and fines of $3 million. Hogan set sentencing for Jan. 19.

Dean’s attorney said that the conviction will be appealed.

According to testimony during the trial, the late John N. Mitchell, attorney general in the Richard Nixon Administration, was among the outside consultants who represented developers favored by Dean. At the time, Mitchell was living with Dean’s widowed mother, Mary Gore Dean.

Mitchell shared in a $275,000 fee with another consultant for helping a developer obtain government subsidies for a $28-million Florida remodeling project, according to prosecution testimony. Prosecutors sought to show that, while Dean received no direct payoff, she could reasonably have expected that Mitchell’s success might benefit her mother.

Before Dean’s conviction, Lance H. Wilson, a previous chief assistant to Pierce, was convicted of one influence-peddling charge after a jury trial last winter. Last June, Thomas T. Demery, once the department’s No. 3 executive, pleaded guilty to reduced charges in a plea agreement and testified against Dean.