Coelho Loan Not Repaid, Lawyer Admits

Vice President Al Gore’s campaign chairman, Tony Coelho, has not fully repaid a $300,000 personal loan that was cited in a stinging government report alleging U.S. mismanagement at a world’s fair in Portugal, Coelho’s lawyer acknowledged Monday.

State Department investigators have said taxpayers may be liable for any unpaid balance on the personal loan Coelho took out while he was commissioner general for the U.S. pavilion at the fair in Lisbon.

Stanley Brand, Coelho’s lawyer, said his client still owes about $100,000 but the debt is “in the process of being paid off.” Brand did not say when the loan would be fully repaid. He reversed his comments of Saturday, when he contended the loan had been paid.

The State Department inspector general, in a report on the 1998 fair, criticized Coelho’s loan, which was obtained from a Portuguese bank so the private Luso-American Wave Foundation could construct a memorial wall in the shape of a wave near the site of the pavilion.

Gore defended Coelho in a television interview Sunday. “Tony Coelho is doing a terrific job. He’s my close friend, and he’s going to continue doing a great job,” he said.