WASHINGTON DESK - Nolanda S. Hill, the business partner of the late Commerce secretary Ronald H. Brown, was indicted Friday by a federal grand jury on charges that she diverted more than $557,000 in federal loan proceeds for her minority owned business to Brown so he could pay his personal overdue bills.
Brown died April 3, 1996 when the Air Force plane carrying his trade delegation crashed in Bosnia killing all 34 aboard. Two pathologists who participated in the crash investigation, Lt. Col. David Hause and
Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell, both of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, report that Brown had what appeared to be a bullet hole in the top of his head. Although the Air Force failed to conduct an autopsy, and ignored its own established procedures in such accidents, the pathologist who examined and photographed Brown's body denied the skull had a bullet hole. At about the same time the announcement was made, Brown's x-rays disappeared.
Ron Brown was the target of an investigation by the Commerce Department
Inspector General, the FDIC, the Justice Dept., the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, and the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was only weeks away from being indicted with respect to a bribe paid by Oklahoma company Dynamic Energy Resources. "I am too old to go to jail," Brown loudly proclaimed. "If I go down, I'll take everyone else down with me." Brown
assumed the threat would force Democratic bigwigs to rally around him, to make sure that the charges he faced were buried in an appropriate fashion. But Brown miscalculated. His own words buried him instead.
The grand jury case resulted from an investigation by the Justice Department that was begun by former independent counsel Daniel S. Pearson into the irregular business dealings of Clinton confidant, Ron Brown. Before the investigation
was concluded, however, Brown was killed in a mysterious plane crash.
At issue when Brown suddenly died, were cash payments Brown had received from proceeds of a government loan to a company Brown had an interest in. Hill paid Brown $135,000 in cash, plus forgiveness of a $72,000 debt he owed to another company owned by Hill. In addition, Brown received $300,000 to pay-off personal debts.
Brown and Hill, operated the First International Communications Corp., a false-front operation that applied for and obtained government loans
s to minority operated businesses, However, First International failed to conduct any business and did not ever generate a business plan for operation.
The nine-count indictment also charged Kenneth C. White, 49, a Maryland resident and former executive of one of her companies with fraud.
The Justice Department took over the probe after Brown died in a plane crash in Croatia in 1996 and Pearson closed his office.
The charges against Hill and White include conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, conspiracy to defraud the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., making false statements and aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns.
Before his death, Brown repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The grand jury report accused Hill of borrowing $21 million from Sunbelt Savings & Loan in Texas. Hill defaulted on the loan, which the American people through made good when the FDIC took over as creditor after Sunbelt failed.
In meetings with FDIC officials, Hill and White allegedly lied about the financial condition of the firm and supplied the agency with phoney books and records that hid numerous diversions of funds for personal use.
According to the indictment, Hill siphoned off more than $575,000 to funnel to Brown , nearly $200,000 from another phoney firm and another $37,000 from yet another non-existent operation to cover her personal expenses and shopping trips while collecting annual salary and benefits that ranged from $170,000 to nearly $260,000 from 1990 to 1994.
Hill formed First International Communications Corp. to pursue access to the Clinton White House through Ron Brown. Brown, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was Hill's partner in First International Communications Corp. who was the ostensible recipient of much of the loan proceeds Hill obtained through minority loans made out to her other company names.
Hill, often bragged about how her business ties to Brown provided her with access to the Clinton White House on numerous occasions.
According to the indictment, Hill spent loan proceeds on thousands of dollars of airline tickets to the Bahamas, London and Ecuador for herself, her family and friends, according to the grand jury. She also went on shopping binges spending more than $5,000 at a crack. She then failed to reimburse the company she operated with Brown but also failed to report the funds she obtained as income on her tax returns.
The indictment said Hill failed to reimburse her companies and should have reported the funds she received as income on her tax returns for 1991, 1992 and 1993.
Two years later, Hill couldn't make payments on the loan. Then, Brown was killed in the plane crash a few months after that.
