Congresswoman’s Fugitive Husband Surrenders to FBI : Investigation: Joseph Waldholtz surfaces after six days. Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz is also a target of the federal probe, authorities say.

The fugitive husband of Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz (R-Utah) surrendered to the FBI here Friday, six days after disappearing in a swirl of questions about his handling of the couple’s personal and campaign finances.

For the first time, federal authorities indicated Friday that the criminal investigation of Waldholtzes’ alleged financial misdeeds encompasses his wife as well.

Joseph P. Waldholtz, 32, appeared before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who released him to the custody of a friend in Philadelphia but limited his travel and ordered him to report daily to federal authorities.

Waldholtz must appear in Washington on Wednesday before a federal grand jury that is investigating potential bank fraud and check kiting involving his and his wife’s finances.

Federal prosecutors said Friday that Waldholtz and the 37-year-old Rep. Waldholtz--one of the most visible members of the large and aggressive GOP freshman class in the House--are under scrutiny for possible campaign finance violations and other financial irregularities.

Joseph Waldholtz’s attorney, Harvey Sernovitz of Philadelphia, pleaded with the judge not to jail Waldholtz, saying that his client has not been charged with any crime and vanished last weekend in the face of “acute personal as well as media pressures.”

“He needed space to get his thoughts together,” Sernovitz said as his 300-pound client, dressed in khakis and a multicolored sweater, looked on in silence in the federal courtroom.

Rep. Waldholtz said in a statement that she has “every confidence the Department of Justice will get to the bottom of the fraud and deception he has perpetrated on me, my family, his family, friends and others. I know that they all share my hurt and sadness as we try to comprehend what Joe has done.”

She also said she had no intention of resigning from Congress.

But neither she nor her attorney had any comment Friday on the grand jury investigation into her own role in the alleged financial schemes.

Since her husband’s disappearance last Saturday, Rep. Waldholtz has steadfastly portrayed herself as the victim of her husband’s lies and fraudulent actions. She has said she is seeking a divorce and intends to resume using her maiden name. She also is asking a court in Utah for sole custody of the couple’s 11-week-old daughter.

But she has not fully explained the source of the $1.8 million that helped her win her seat in Congress last year or detailed her knowledge of the couple’s tangled finances since. The Waldholtzes have bounced several rent checks, fallen behind in credit card bills and consistently overdrawn their accounts in Washington and Salt Lake City.

A federal law enforcement source confirmed Friday that the extent of Rep. Waldholtz’s knowledge of or participation in the family’s financial dealings is under active grand jury investigation.

“We’ll follow the evidence wherever it leads us,” the official said.

Upon learning that her son had reappeared unharmed, Waldholtz’s mother, Marilyn, said in a telephone interview from her home in Pittsburgh, “Of course we’re delighted, thrilled, glad that he’s safe. I hope we can work all this out.” She and her husband, Harvey Waldholtz, have not heard from their son since last Saturday.

Harvey Waldholtz said, “We are most surprised by this whole thing. Strange story.”

But the congresswoman’s mother, Gerda Greene of Salt Lake City, expressed bitterness toward her son-in-law in a brief interview with the Associated Press. “Good,” she said of his surrender to authorities. “I hope he will not lie any further. . . . I think he even pretended that he was an Episcopalian and he was a Jew.”

Enid Greene Waldholtz’s family is Mormon; the Waldholtzes are Jewish.

Her parents loaned the couple about $4 million to help finance her political career based on promises of repayment from Joseph Waldholtz’s purported trust funds and real estate holdings. Waldholtz’s father said that no such funds exist, and the congresswoman said that as much as $2 million of the money has disappeared.

In his court appearance Friday, Joseph Waldholtz agreed to surrender his passport and to confine his travel to Philadelphia, Washington and Pittsburgh, where his family lives.

Assistant U.S. Atty. William Lawler gave the first detailed accounting of Waldholtz’s whereabouts since he ditched his wife and her brother-in-law at Washington’s National Airport last Saturday.

Lawler said that Waldholtz made his way to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, then boarded an Amtrak train for Springfield, Mass., where he spent Saturday and Sunday nights. He then traveled by train to Philadelphia, where he spent two nights in a hotel and two nights at the suburban home of a friend, whose name was not released.

Waldholtz told prosecutors that he did not learn until he picked up a copy of USA Today on Thursday morning that a warrant had been issued for his arrest the night before.

Sullivan signed the warrant based on an FBI affidavit that described Waldholtz as the subject of a grand jury investigation into a check-kiting scheme involving his and his wife’s bank accounts in Washington and Salt Lake City.

After learning of the warrant, Waldholtz immediately took steps to turn himself in on Friday morning, Sernovitz said.