KILLER CASTS SHADOW ON BROTHER SEEKING U.S. POST

HOUSTON -- In his bid to become the top federal prosecutor in the Southern
District of Texas, Roland Garcia Jr. presents some impressive credentials.
He is a partner in a prestigious law firm here, a director of the Houston
Bar Association and a past president of the Hispanic Bar Association. The
Democratic members of Congress in the Southern District have officially
recommended him for the post.

But with his name now before President Clinton, the 39-year-old Garcia is
finding his campaign for the U.S. attorney's job clouded by something he
neglected to disclose, at least initially, to the congressmen here: His
younger brother is in federal prison, convicted of involvement in
drug-running and of the murder of an associate who crossed him on a deal.

The story of Edgar Arnold Garcia's descent into crime is a painful family
tale, one that seems to stand in stark contrast to the achievements of the
rest of his siblings: two lawyers, including Roland Garcia, an investment
banker and a singer.

Roland Garcia was in tears last August when he spoke to a federal judge in
Florida who was considering his 37-year-old brother's sentence. Roland
Garcia told the court, "I also want to say, on a personal note, that I love
my brother, that I believe in my brother, that I personally long for the
day that he can come back to the family, that his children can hug him and
be with him again."

In his office at the Houston law firm of Liddell, Sapp, Zively, Hill &
LaBoon, Garcia said in a recent interview that he had no idea then that
just months later, he would be in line to be a U.S. attorney, pledging
vigorously to uphold the nation's tough drug laws. In any event, as even
the prosecutor in the Florida case notes: "He was speaking as a brother,
not as a lawyer. He made that very clear."

Nonetheless, his brother's case, Roland Garcia's apparent plea for leniency
and his failure to raise the matter when he was approached about the U.S.
attorney's post are all part of a swirl of contention surrounding Garcia's
potential nomination, even as his many advocates here have redoubled their
efforts in recent weeks to secure him the post.

The matter is a complicated one for the White House, fraught with both
ethnic politics (Garcia has wide support from many minority groups here,
and there are few Hispanic U.S. attorneys anywhere in the country) and the
politics of the White House's fight with the Republican-controlled Senate
over the slow pace of approvals for both federal judges and federal
prosecutors.

At the core of it all, though, are some basic questions, all variations on
the essential issue of being a brother's keeper. Is it relevant at all that
his brother is in prison? Are his comments to the judge relevant? ("If I
were a prosecutor, I would have done the same thing the prosecutors did in
his case," Garcia says. "But I was not the prosecutor. I was the brother.")
Did he have an immediate responsibility to bring up the matter when asked
whether he wanted to be a prosecutor?

Garcia now says he wished he had simply disclosed the matter before he was
asked about it by the local news media. "Yes, I wish it would have occurred
to me to bring up the issue of my brother, to take it off the table early
on." But, he added: "I have not thought my brother to be relevant to my
professional career in all these years that I have been practicing law. It
simply does not occur to me to tell people, 'Oh, by the way, I have a
brother in jail."'

In any event, he insists, offering a sentiment echoed by several
congressmen here and other supporters, his nomination should not be
derailed because of the disclosure issue. "I know I have good judgment as a
trial lawyer," Garcia said. "I may not have the best judgment as a public
relations expert, but I'm learning every day."

But to at least some of those reviewing the issue in Washington, his
failure to bring up the matter is troubling.

"There really are two questions here," said a Senate official in Washington
involved in the screening process. "Do you knock him out of contention
simply because of the fact that his brother was into murder and drug
dealing and the answer is, probably not, not simply because he's got a
black sheep in the family.

"But the second point is the question of honesty and disclosure," said the
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Somebody at the White
House is going to have to look very hard at the ceiling and visualize the
hearing at which he is asked a long series of very difficult questions. And
it will be, what did you know and why didn't you say it?"

Under Senate procedures, the two senators from Texas, Phil Gramm and Kay
Bailey Hutchison, wield all but veto power in the approval process. Neither
has taken a public position on Garcia, and neither is likely to do so until
- -- or unless -- he is officially nominated. Garcia has served for nearly
three years as a member of Ms. Hutchison's advisory committee on Hispanic
affairs.

The congressmen in the Houston area, who offered Garcia's name for the
post, said they were disappointed that he had not told them about his
brother early on. Described early and forthrightly, they say, it could have
made his own case all the more compelling.

"I said to him, 'Roland, it would have been nice if I had known about
this,"' said Rep. Gene Green, a Democrat who represents a largely Hispanic
district in Houston and is supporting Garcia. "He should have said, 'Look,
I have a brother in prison."'

"I personally believe that qualifications override the lack of disclosure,"
Green said. "I'd like Roland to have a fair chance to explain it to the
Senate. Certainly, there are no other warts or problems that have come up
other than this. If somebody were to oppose him, this is the only reason."
Green and other members of the South Texas Democratic delegation in
Congress voted informally to stand by Garcia even after the disclosure
issue emerged.

Garcia is also the object of a strong lobbying campaign by supporters,
including many Hispanic groups and the leader of the Houston-area chapter
of the NAACP. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is expected to adopt a
resolution later this month calling on Clinton to nominate Garcia.

The White House is expected to make a decision within weeks.

Belen Robles, national president of the League of United Latin American
Citizens, known as Lulac, sent a letter to Clinton last month in which she
urged that Garcia be nominated. Referring to the "criminal misdeeds" of his
younger brother, she wrote that "this should not be held against Garcia; on
the contrary, Garcia's firsthand knowledge of the adverse effects of drugs
on a family will provide him with the background he will need."

Roland and Edgar Arnold Garcia were very close as young brothers, Garcia
said, but they drifted apart as the elder brother went to college at Baylor
University in Waco and earned a law degree at the South Texas College of
Law in Houston. The younger brother dropped out of high school, made
contacts in the drug world and eventually became enmeshed in a South Texas
drug-smuggling organization, said Greg McMahon, chief of special
prosecutions in the Eighth Judicial District of Florida.

In June 1991, McMahon said, the younger Garcia went to a motel in
Chiefland, Fla., tracking down an associate, Phillip Martin Cryer, who had
failed to deliver proceeds from 100 pounds of marijuana. Garcia shot the
man nine times, killing him, McMahon said.

Edgar Arnold Garcia fled to Canada. He was extradited last year, but only
after Florida officials, who had wanted to seek the death penalty for the
killing, agreed not to do so. Garcia pleaded guilty to charges of federal
conspiracy to commit drug trafficking and weapons violations and was
sentenced to 30 years in prison.

He also pleaded guilty to a state charge of second-degree murder; under a
plea bargain, his 17-year sentence is to run concurrently with his federal
sentence.

As he was sentenced in August, when Roland Garcia spoke on his behalf,
Edgar Arnold Garcia addressed the court. "I have spent so many nights
crying and praying for this man," he said of the victim. "I pray for the
repose of his soul. I hope that God has him in his company."

Roland Garcia has not seen his brother since that day, and he expressed
surprise when a reporter told him recently that the brother, in what
federal prison officials said was a routine transfer, had been sent to a
prison in Beaumont, Tex.

In the interview, Garcia offered a succinct way of summing up his feelings
about his brother's criminal life. "I love my brother," he said. "I detest
what he did."

In any event, he insisted, he did not believe that the family trauma would
have any negative impact on his ability to be the top federal prosecutor in
South Texas.

"I will zealously prosecute anyone who violates the law, and I have no
problem at all seeking the maximum criminal penalties," he said. "I know
exactly how families can be hurt and traumatized by the evils of drugs. And
I will redouble my efforts to make sure that doesn't happen to another
family."

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company