
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 14, 1994                   TAG: 9412140122
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

EX-LAWMAKER TO ADMIT FRAUD OF HOUSE BANK

Former four-term Kentucky congressman Carl ``Chris'' Perkins agreed Tuesday to plead guilty to defrauding the House Bank and other financial institutions, the Justice Department said. He was the second former congressman charged in the House Bank scandal.

His secretary while he served in Congress, Martha Amburgey, also agreed to plead guilty, the government said.

The government said Perkins fraudulently obtained bank loans through check kiting at the House Bank and five other financial institutions. He gave the false impression that he had substantial deposits when his actual balances were negligible or he owned money, the government said. He did this by depositing checks in the banks drawn on his accounts in the other banks that he knew had insufficient funds, the government said.

Perkins, 40, represented the 7th Congressional District, a mountainous, coal region in eastern Kentucky, from 1984 to 1993. A Democrat, he first won the seat after the death of his father, Carl D. Perkins, who had held it for 36 years and was chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

The younger Perkins did not seek re-election in 1992 after redistricting eliminated one of Kentucky's House seats.

Perkins faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine for the three felony counts filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. The plea agreement calls for him to serve a prison sentence, and if U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth accepts the agreement, the guidelines call for a sentence of 15 to 21 months, Lotz said.

by CNB