Pardon draws protests
Rich fled after indictment, was involved in Kaiser deal
From staff and wire reports
Spokane _ The presidential pardon of a fugitive well-known to members of the United Steelworkers of America has provoked authorities who tried to bring him to justice.
Marc Rich was among the dozens of people who received last-minute pardons Saturday from outgoing President Bill Clinton.
Rich, a multibillionaire commodities trader, was indicted in 1983 by a federal grand jury on more than 50 counts of wire fraud, racketeering, trading with the enemy and evading more than $48 million in income taxes -- crimes that could have earned him more than 300 years in prison.
He fled to Switzerland.
In 1988, investors led by Rich bought the Ravenswood, W.Va., aluminum smelter and rolling mill from Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.
When the Ravenswood Steelworkers, who also represent Kaiser workers in Spokane, called a strike in 1990, the work force was locked out of the plant immediately.
Ravenswood workers responded by pursuing Rich in Europe. They picketed his home and blocked purchases of a smelter in Czechoslovakia and hotel in Hungary.
Rich relented when a Dutch bank backed out of a loan that would have cashed him out of the Ravenswood deal.
The successful campaign against Rich was a model for the two-year-long dispute between the Spokane Steelworkers and Kaiser that ended in September.
But the Ravenswood struggle had nothing to do with the anger voiced this week by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
He said Congress should look into the pardon of Rich, whose ex-wife is a Clinton friend and Democratic fund-raiser. And the local federal prosecutor said her office was not consulted.
"I don't see a pardon for somebody who ran away as a fugitive," Giuliani said. "He's involved in $150 million in tax evasion and the president just wiped that away."
In New York, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said her office was unaware that a pardon for Rich was being considered.
"The Department of Justice was also bypassed in a number of other pardon applications for defendants from this district," she said in a statement Monday.
Giuliani said the pardon is questionable, particularly because Rich's "family members raised enormous amounts of money for the president."
"I think it's worth Congress looking into it," said Giuliani, who as a federal prosecutor had pursued Rich.
While Congress could review Saturday's pardon, it has no authority to overturn Clinton's action.
Rich's ex-wife, songwriter Denise Rich, wasn't involved in the pardon and "was as surprised as anyone" by it, said her spokesman, Bobby Zarem.
But The New York Times reported Tuesday that Denise Rich had written a letter Dec. 6, solicited by her ex-husband's lawyers, urging a pardon and saying, "Exile for 17 years is enough." Lawyer Robert F. Fink told the newspaper the ex-wife called the White House and "made it clear she wanted it to happen."
Clinton wouldn't talk about it Monday.
"I'm out of office now," he told reporters outside his new home in suburban Westchester County just north of New York City. "I'm not talking any more."
On Sunday, Clinton said Rich's Washington attorney, Jack Quinn, convinced him of the merits of a pardon.
Quinn, who once worked at the White House for Clinton, was unavailable for comment, his office said Monday. Fink also did not return a call seeking comment.
Switzerland has refused to extradite Rich, who was accused of making huge profits through an illegal oil pricing scheme in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. He also was accused of making oil deals with Iran during the U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Fugitive Lookout notice.
Federal records show Denise Rich contributed at least $7,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's successful U.S. Senate campaign as well as $1,000 to Giuliani's aborted Senate run. A financial supporter of the Gore presidential campaign, she also gave more than $200,000 to the Democratic National Committee.