Former Top Bush Aide Accused of Md. Thefts
Refund Scam Netted $5,000, Police Say
By Ernesto Londoņo and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 11, 2006; A01
Claude A. Allen, who resigned last month as President Bush's top
domestic policy adviser, was arrested this week in Montgomery County
for allegedly swindling Target and Hecht's stores out of more than
$5,000 in a refund scheme, police said. Allen, 45, of Gaithersburg,
has been released on his own recognizance and is awaiting trial on two
charges, felony theft scheme and theft over $500, said Lt. Eric
Burnett, a police spokesman. Each charge is punishable by up to 15
years in prison...
Allen, a former deputy secretary in the Department of Health and Human
Services, was nominated in 2003 to a federal appeals court seat. He
was appointed the president's top domestic policy adviser last year at
the start of Bush's second term...
Allen is a self-described born-again Christian who got his start in
politics working for Jesse Helms (R), the conservative former North
Carolina senator. Allen stirred controversy as Helms's campaign
spokesman in 1984 by telling a reporter that then-Gov. James B. Hunt
Jr. -- Helms's opponent -- was politically vulnerable because of his
links to the "queers." He later explained that he used the word not to
denigrate anyone but as a synonym for "odd and unusual."
Before that, Allen worked for the Virginia state attorney general's
office and as state health and human resources secretary. In that job,
he earned a reputation as a staunch conservative; once he kept
Medicaid funds from an impoverished rape victim who wanted an
abortion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/10/AR2006031002328..html
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