04/05/99 -- $550,000 LOBBYIST FOR CAMBODIA FINANCED CONFEDERATE LAWSUIT
Washington, D.C., April 5 -- A lobbyist with a $550,000 annual contract with the government of Cambodia has been financing a lawsuit against the Confederate Memorial Association, according to CMA president John Edward Hurley.
Another contract rel eased by Hurley showed that the same lobbyist, Richard Hines, had also signed a contract to finance litigation against the CMA, which had owned and operated the only Civil War museum in the nation's capital.
Hurley said that the bizarre lawsuit, w hich has been in the D.C. Superior Court for the last decade, is now centered on the conversion of near $250,000 in assets of the CMA. Hurley complained that U.S. national security facilities and personnel had been illegally utilized to pursue the litiga tion.
One of the plaintiffs against Hurley is Vicki Heilig of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Hurley said that Heilig works for the national security computer firm, Fuentez Systems Concepts, that subcontracts for the National Securit y Agency, the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense.
Heilig directly reports to Captain W.R. Ashforth, who had notarized an affidavit that was introduced into the court record to support the disbursement of the CMA assets. Ashf orth commands the sensitive Coast Guard computer facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Hurley said that Hines had also been financing the controversial white supremacist group, the Council of Conservative Citizens. The CCC is the target of a co ngressional resolution condemning it as a racist organization. Both Majority Leader Trent Lott and Congressman Bob Barr have spoken at the group's meetings.
"When national security personnel and facilities can be used against a domestic priv ate organization like ours," Hurley said, "this country is losing its constitutional government."
Ironically both Fuentez Computer Concepts and WIN Laboratories (another government computer contracting firm represented by Hines) are affirmati ve action contractors. Affirmative action is vigorously opposed by the Council of Conservative Citizens.
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