Indictment Likely Speeded Trie’s Return From Abroad

After more than a year traveling through Asia avoiding questions about the American campaign-finance scandal, Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie’s world was shrinking. He found himself in tiny Macao, the gambling and tourist mecca across the mouth of the Pearl River from Hong Kong.

Last summer, he bragged to NBC News that he could continue to hide in Asia for the next 10 years. “They’ll never find me,” he said in Shanghai.

But Trie’s indictment last week abruptly changed things. Accused of 15 counts of conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice and election-law violations, Trie no longer hovered in self-imposed exile. Suddenly, his status was transformed to international fugitive.

U.S. officials put out word to Asian authorities that they wanted Trie detained. The former Little Rock, Ark., restaurateur who once had easy access to the White House could no longer travel to Hong Kong, Taiwan and China without risking arrest, at the least.

That’s when negotiations between federal prosecutors and Trie’s attorney produced a hasty plan for his voluntary surrender, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Trie arrived here Tuesday on a flight from Paris with his attorney, Reid Weingarten, who issued a statement saying Trie would be “fully vindicated.” Trie was scheduled to be arraigned in federal court here today.

It remained unclear Wednesday whether Trie plans to cooperate with the Justice Department campaign finance task force.

However, Trie’s return was greeted with delight by law enforcement officials and congressional investigators who believe the longtime Clinton friend holds the key to many unanswered questions--including whether President Clinton knew or should have known about suspicious and illegal fund-raising in the 1996 campaign.

“He certainly can say whether or not he was working with the president’s knowledge,” said one congressional investigator. “I would imagine that the White House is concerned about it and the FBI is excited about it.”

Trie’s was the first in what is expected to be a series of indictments in coming weeks. His return “could be a watershed” for the Justice Department’s campaign fund-raising investigation, according to another source familiar with the inquiry.

From 1994 through 1996, Trie channeled a total of more than $1.2 million to Clinton’s legal trust fund and to the Democratic National Committee, most of which was returned after questions were raised about the true sources of the funds.

Referring to Trie’s campaign role, Clinton told USA Today last August: “I had no reason to believe that he didn’t know what the law was and wouldn’t follow it.”

Weingarten gave no hint that Trie was seeking to make any sort of deal with prosecutors. He discounted the notion that threats of arrest drove Trie to return.

Because of his voluntary return, “any questions about his being a fugitive from justice or a spy for a foreign power should be put to rest,” Weingarten said in a statement. “We are confident that when the media frenzy and political savagery associated with this case abate and this matter is aired in court, Mr. Trie will be fully vindicated.”

Task force attorneys had sought to seal the indictment of Trie and his business associate, Yuan Pei “Antonio” Pan, on Jan. 28, while FBI agents checked to see “what was possible” about apprehending them, one source said. But a federal magistrate in Washington balked, and word of the charges made the front pages of several newspapers, which resulted in the indictment being filed publicly last Thursday.

Times staff writer Glenn F. Bunting contributed to this story.