WATTS CONFIRMS CALL FROM FLEEING SISTER

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts,R-Okla., confirmed through an aide that
he received a call from his sister while she was fleeing drug charges in
Oklahoma County.

``He advises that she was in Maryland,'' Watts' Chief of Staff Michael
Hunter said Friday.

``There was discussion of her problem, and his recommendation to her was to
get with the authorities and get the problem worked out.''

Watts also may not have contacted authorities after receiving the call from
his sister, it was learned.

She had skipped bail by failing to appear for a Nov. 10 hearing in Oklahoma
City. State law makes it is illegal for Oklahomans to give any kind of
assistance to a fugitive.

It also prohibits them from concealing a fugitive's location.

The head of the Oklahoma Bondsman Association said that under the ``letter
of the law,'' Watts may have been obligated to inform authorities about the
contact with his sister.

``She was a fugitive,'' association President Dudley Goolsby said.

But Goolsby said that may be a ``gray area'' of the law and conceded that
it would have been difficult for Watts to do that to his sister.

``Put yourself in his shoes,'' he said.

Along with several others, Darlene Watts of Oklahoma City was charged with
possession of methamphetamines and with trafficking in the drug.

A bail bondsman said his firm searched for her ``all over the country'' and
eventually apprehended her in Oklahoma City.

She was returned to jail in Oklahoma County on New Year's Eve.

After she resolves the problems with the drug charges, officials said, she
will be held over to face municipal charges on public indecency.

Those 1996 charges stem from her performance at an Oklahoma City club where
she was a dancer.

Watts has declined to be interviewed about the legal situation involving
his 34-year-old sister. He earlier had told an aide that he had not seen
his sister in a year.

Hunter said the congressman was in Norman when he received the call, the
exact date of which Watts could not recall.

``I don't have any indication from him regarding that, either way,'' Hunter
said when asked whether Watts then contacted authorities about the call
from his sister.

He went on to say that Watts had only a ``sketchy understanding'' of his
sister's situation, and they had not seen each other for more than a year.

Hunter said the congressman also said his sister did not tell him exactly
where she was in Maryland.

Their contact apparently was limited to the one phone call, Hunter said.

``If he didn't know where she was,it would be kind of hard for him to tell
somebody where she was,'' Goolsby said.

Although he has declined to speak about his sister's situation, Watts has
expressed concern for her through Hunter.

``The congressman is . . . trying to balance his responsibilities as a
public official to comment on this situation with his responsibility to his
family,'' Hunter said.

``His view is that this is an appropriate balancing of those interests.''

Only in his second term in Congress,Watts is a star on the Republican
speaking circuit.