White House’s Ex-Travel Chief Faces Indictment

The former chief of the White House travel office expects to be indicted on embezzlement charges, his attorney said Monday.

The attorney for Billy R. Dale said federal prosecutors plan to ask a grand jury Wednesday or Friday to charge Dale with stealing $69,000 in money paid by news organizations for their reporters’ travel with the President.

Dale was fired in a purge of the travel office in May, 1993. An audit that month found the office kept sloppy records.

But controversy began when it was learned that initial complaints came from Catherine A. Cornelius, a 25-year-old distant cousin of President Clinton, who was assigned to the office, and from Harry Thomason, a Hollywood producer and close friend of the Clintons.

Dale, 57, began work at the White House more than 30 years ago and in 1982 took charge of the travel office, where he was paid about $75,000 a year. He is starting a legal defense fund, said his attorney, Steven C. Tabackman.

“No one who has worked with Billy Ray Dale or who has had any contact with him either personally or professionally during the 31 years that he served the White House and the media believes for an instant that Mr. Dale embezzled a cent from the travel office,” Tabackman said.

Tabackman acknowledged that the government can show $55,000 going from the travel office to Dale’s bank account between 1982 and early 1992 and he says prosecutors also allege Dale converted $14,000 cash to his own use in 1992-93.