Prosecutors Lose Ground in Cisneros Case

The government’s case against former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros showed signs of coming apart Wednesday, when the prosecution’s key witness, his former mistress Linda Jones, admitted she had lied repeatedly under oath.

Under cross-examination from Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., Cisneros’ lawyer, Jones calmly acknowledged lying to FBI agents who were examining Cisneros’ fitness to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development and later to other agents who were investigating Cisneros’ truthfulness after he had taken office.

She also admitted she lied more than once in her 1994 deposition in a civil breach-of-contract lawsuit she was pressing against Cisneros.

Jones said that most of her false statements dealt with the authenticity of secret tape-recordings she made of 88 phone conversations with Cisneros from 1990 to 1993 in an effort to keep him from reneging on what she said was his pledge to provide her $3,000 to $4,000 a month in support payments.

Defense Wants Altered Tapes Thrown Out

Although she deleted segments of some recordings and destroyed all the original tapes after rerecording them, Jones acknowledged that she passed them off as unaltered tapes in her lawsuit and later to FBI agents working on an independent counsel investigation of Cisneros.

“You were lying here generally to prosecute a claim for money against Henry Cisneros,” Sullivan said of her deposition. “You were desperate for money, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Jones answered.

Her testimony came as U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin continued a hearing this week to dispose of motions before Cisneros’ scheduled trial in September. Defense lawyers want Sporkin to throw out all of the “tampered” recordings that independent counsel David Barrett plans to use to help prove that Cisneros lied to FBI agents about the extent of his financial relationship with Jones.

The tapes are considered crucial to the prosecution’s argument that Cisneros conspired with Jones and others to conceal his hefty payments to her after their romance broke up while he was mayor of San Antonio.

The December 1997 indictment of Cisneros charges that he misled investigators, telling them he paid Jones about $60,000 after their 1988 breakup, when he actually had paid her more than $250,000 over a period of years. Cisneros was concerned that a truthful answer might kill his nomination, officials allege.

Cisneros, now president and chief executive officer of Univision, a Spanish-language television programmer based in Los Angeles, has pleaded not guilty to the 18 counts of lying, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

Although Jones’ admissions Wednesday of lying were her first from the witness stand, she pleaded guilty last year to fraud, conspiracy and money laundering in an unrelated case growing out of Barrett’s investigation. She is serving a 42-month prison sentence in that case.

Sorting Out the Truth

Sporkin said Wednesday that he still is undecided whether to let prosecutors introduce 33 of the tapes. Associate independent counsel Mark Jackowski said the tapes are valuable because they includes Cisneros’ own references to the payments.

Sporkin said he was finding it difficult to sort out Jones’ testimony.

“I’m astounded when I sit here and listen to what has happened in this case,” he said. “I guess there are people in this country who don’t know how to tell the truth. What I have to determine is, is she telling the truth in front of me?”