DNC Said To Have Gotten Drug Money

By PEGGY HARRIS

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) An Arkansas lawyer was charged Wednesday with
laundering $380,000 in drug money and funneling some of it to the Democratic
National Committee in 1992 and President Clinton's 1993 inauguration.

Mark Cambiano pleaded innocent to all 31 federal money laundering and
conspiracy counts involving cash from a methamphetamine ring. The indictment
does not say whether Cambiano has any link to Clinton. His name does not
appear on a list of recent overnight visitors to the White House.

U.S. Attorney Paula Casey stressed that the people who received money from
Cambiano didn't know the donations were dirty. She said the 41yearold
lawyer wasn't involved in drug trafficking, but moved the money for others to
keep it from being tracked.

``The only comment I have is not guilty,'' Cambiano said as he left court.
``You hear that all the time, but in this case, it's really true. I'm not
guilty.''

The indictment said Cambiano, a defense attorney who specializes in death row
cases, transferred $20,000 from his bank account to the DNC around July 10,
1992, and transferred $9,770 around Jan. 7, 1993, to the Presidential
Inaugural Committee General Fund.

DNC spokeswoman Amy Weiss Tobe said attorneys would look into the donation
and see whether it needed to be returned. The DNC has returned several
questionable donations made during the 1996 presidential campaign.

Cambiano also used part of the money to buy real estate, put in a swimming
pool, pay off a loan used to pay taxes, and pay off his home mortgage, the
indictment said.

Casey said Cambiano's alleged activities surfaced during a drug trafficking
investigation of alleged ring leader Willard Burnett and a county sheriff,
who have both pleaded guilty in the case. Cambiano laundered drug money for
Burnett and former Conway County Sheriff James Carl Poteete, she said.

Poteete admitted in December that he caused a bank to fail to report a cash
transaction of more than $10,000.

Prosecutors said Poteete took $11,000 from Burnett to buy land for him, but
split the purchase into $2,000 and $9,000 increments. Had the entire purchase
price gone through one agency, the lending company would have been required
to tell the Internal Revenue Service about the transaction.

Burnett has pleaded guilty to drug charges, conspiracy to escape, money
laundering, and conspiracy to commit capital murder in the death of David
Cains, an informant who died before he could testify in the 1991 drug trial
of a Burnett nephew.

Cambiano, of Morrilton, was released on a $25,000 bond. His trial date was
set for May 27.