Section B · Page 10
The University Daily Kansan
Friday, September 5, 1997
Nuns took money, falsified records
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Buddhist nuns acknowledged yesterday that their temple illegally reimbursed donors after a fund-raiser attended by Vice President Al Gore and later destroyed or altered records to
avoid embarrassment.
The testimony by a trio of nuns, which opened a new round of Senate hearings, intensified the focus on Gore, whose presidential ambitions could be hindered by questions over his 1996 role. President Clinton defended
Sore: involved in alleged fund-raising violations
Gore, saying the vice president had followed the law in raising money last year.
The nuns, from the Hsi Lai Temple outside Los Angeles, told senators how temple leaders went to the White House in March 1996 for a meeting with Gore and invited him to visit their temple.
Afterwards, the temple and two fund-raisers who had facilitated the meeting with Gore planned the event as a fund-raiser.
The White House said yesterday the vice president had no idea the event was going to be a fund-raiser.
The records were destroyed last fall once the controversy over Gore's attendance at the event had erupted during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, one num told the Senate panel investigating campaign fund-raising abuses.
Man Ho said she destroyed a list of people who had donated $42,500 to attend the luncheon that she had prepared for Democratic fund-raiser John Huang. Once the fund-raiser became an issue, "I was afraid the document might cause embarrassment to the temple," she told senators.
Man Ho also testified that she destroyed lists of names of people who attended the luncheon that bore their telephone numbers and Social Security numbers — information the Secret Service needed to clear the guests into the temple.
The nuns testified a day after Attorney General Janet Reno announced she was considering opening a preliminary investigation to determine whether an independent counsel should investigate calls Gore made to donors from the White House. Federal law bars political fund raising on government property.
Clinton, vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., stood by Gore, saying, "I believe what he did was
legal." Clinton said he was confident Reno would make a determination based on the law.
The White House said Gore did not discuss fund-raising during the meeting when he accepted an invitation to visit the temple from the group's Venerable Master Hsing Yan. The Buddhist leader was accompanied by Huang and Democratic fund-raiser Maria Hsia, as a well as the temple's abbess.
Man Ho testified that Hsia and Huang were involved at every stage of the planning and both attended the luncheon. Huang was the master of ceremonies and Hsia, a devotee of the temple, sat at the head table, she said.
The nuns said they were unaware of the prohibition.
The nuns described how Hsiai asked Buddhist monastics to donate additional money to the Democratic National Committee a day after the luncheon. The temple reimbursed the nuns and monks for the $55,000 in donations they made as individuals to the DNC in violation of federal election law. It is illegal to disguise the true source of a donation.
Speaking through an interpreter, temple treasurer Yi Chu testified that she destroyed slips of paper documenting requests for the reimbursement checks. She also admitted writing notations on the checks after they were cashed to make it
look as if they were loans to the monastics or from their personal accounts.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the committee made the correct decision to grant immunity from prosecution "even though some very startling information has come forth" about the nuns' destruction of documents. The immunity was granted over the objection of the Justice Department.
The committee produced exhibits showing temple officials disguised nearly $130,000 of donations to Democrats at Hia's behest. Some of these donations date to 1993 and involve at least one other fund-raiser attended by Gore, investigators said.
Both Hsia and Huang are refusing to testify before the committee, invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-crimination.
Democrats seeking to defend Gore produced a March 23, 1996, letter to Gore from Hsia indicating that the original plans for his California trip included a fund-raiser at a restaurant followed by "a rally" at the temple.
They also released a copy of a DNC invitation for a luncheon at a restaurant in Monterey Park, Calif., that officials have said was the original site of a fund-raising event.
That luncheon was combined with the temple event to accommodate Gore's schedule, Man Ho testified.
Take this advice: Avoid new Brewery
By Spencer Duncan
Kansan editor
There are a few things restaurant goers are guaranteed to get at the Brown Bear Brewing Company: Bad food, bad service and a burning sensation in the mouth.
The Brewery, 729 Massachusetts, has a long way to go before customers will leave satisfied.
It's not just that the food was less than acceptable, but the service was incompetent.
After being seated and taking a sip from my water glass, I perused the menu.
There was nothing original.
It was your basic Brewery grub:
Sandwiches, pasta, appetizers that
included quesadillas and lots of
entrees with chicken as it's staple.
As for prices, the sandwiches
ranged form $5 to $6 and the pasta was anywhere from $8 to $11.
It took the waitress 10 minutes to get to me and my eating companions, so by the time she arrived we had chosen our appetizer and main course. So, we ordered everything at once. I ordered spinach dip for an appetizer, linguine with shrimp in clam sauce for my main course and a Caesar salad.
But you know things are going bad when 15 minutes after ordering your waitress walks up and says, "Let me tell you about the problems in the kitchen."
put on our tanble.
I was expecting her to say there had been a fire or they were out of dip. Instead, she said the orders were all completed at once and she then proceeded to give me and my friends all of our food at once. The salad, appetizers and main dishes were all
This isn't the way things are done. However, I shouldn't complain. The waitress felt bad and the dip was free. Good thing, because it was horrible.
It left an unexplainable aftertaste that remained in my mouth after three teeth bushings.
That was just one bad things I ate.
The Caesar salad burned my mouth. I'm not talking about a hot spicy burn, I'm talking about the feeling of acid being poured in your mouth.
I have never had a Caesar salad so bad. What made it even more frustrating is that I chose the Caesar salad on the waitresses recommendation.
The only thing left before me to eat was my main course, the linguine with shrimp in clam sauce.
I felt duped, because they should have called it Ramen Noodle with three small shrimp in some funky sauce. I couldn't finish. What made me upset was that it cost $9.95.
There were good things: The bread and water. The bread was good enough that I ate it to make up for not being able to eat.
I don't want to infer the place is all bad. The ambiance is relaxing, with John Coltrane and other jazz greats floating from the speakers.
There are pictures of jazz legends and a mural of a jazz playing bear.
Of course, the thing everyone wants to know about is the bar. There were no specials and I didn't drink, but I have talked to people who have. From what I hear the stouts are good.
But I can get good beer anywhere and the Brown Bear will not be a place I return to.
Government to investigate allegations of overcharging lax oversight of nationwide citizenship testing program
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Just months after closing down one national citizenship test program, the government is investigating another amid questions about whether immigrants were overcharged and allowed to cheat.
The director of the program, based at Houston Community College-Southeast, was reassigned after college officials received complaints that he may have improperly directed business to his wife and failed to adequately monitor the school's coast-to-coast network of 60 test operators to prevent fraud.
An internal audit at the college is under way.
"We're trying to eliminate the carpetbaggers, people who only want the money and leave a burning trail of dissatisfied clients — the applicants for naturalization," said Sandra Vega, acting director of the Houston program.
It is the second time in a year that problems have surfaced under an Immigration and Naturalization Service program that allows five outside organizations to administer the history and English exams that are requirements for American citizenship.
These government-approved programs will deal with roughly 20 percent of the 1.8 million immigrants who will test to become Americans this year.
In January, the immigration service closed a testing network based in Florida after cheating was uncovered at some of its 400 exam sites. This sent test operators scrambling to affiliate with other agency-approved networks.
Now, interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press indicate problems in the Houston program.
Greg Gourley, a Houston Community College test operator in Redmond, Wash., said that in January he saw a tester in Seattle fill out answers for immigrants taking a college-issued
test.
One of the would-be citizens said he paid $165 — more than five times the normal fee — to have someone complete the test for him, Gourley said, adding that the test session had not been authorized by the college.
"Even as I was shutting down this illegal testing room I suspected other unauthorized tests — not approved by the college — would crop up in Seattle and cities across the country," he said.
"Reports come across my desk on a regular basis about people taking tests for others, or switching fingerprints or offering the 'fast way' to citizenship."
Until recently, the Houston program was directed by Paul Metzger Jr. The government and the college are investigating complaints from test operators and others that Metzger;
Signed up at least five test operators who had been suspended by the now-defunct Florida firm for overcharging immigrants, conducting unauthorized tests or other improprieties.
Conducted inadequate monitoring to discourage cheating and exorbitant test fees and to prevent operators from administering tests that were not approved by the college.
Channeled business to a testing operation partly owned by his wife, Alice. College records indicate that DaSilva's firm did 3,000 of the 8,000 tests the program administered in May.
"There seemed to be developing a pattern of rapid growth in her testing business," said Vega, Metzger's replacement. "It appears that when his wife was testing, he was in the same city. Perhaps there might have been favoritism."
Metzger said he terminated three test operators for cheating or charging excessive fees and suspended at least three more, but never could prove allegations against others.