Delay Alleged in Silverado S&L; Closure : Thrifts: The FBI was asked to probe whether regulators held off shutting down the S&L; where President Bush’s son worked until after the 1988 election.

The Treasury Department asked the FBI last fall to investigate allegations that regulators delayed until after Election Day, 1988, their closing of a Colorado savings and loan where President Bush’s son, Neil, was a director, documents show.

An FBI spokesman confirmed on Monday that the agency has been investigating Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan Assn. for more than a year, but he declined to say whether the effort covers charges of pressure to delay Silverado’s closing.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general, who started the investigation into the savings and loan in June, 1990, referred the matter to the FBI last October, letters obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request show. The Denver-based financial institution was seized by regulators in December, 1988, and its failure is expected to cost taxpayers about $1 billion.

Treasury spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Monday that between June and October of last year, the department “talked with the FBI and held a series of meetings to determine what would be the appropriate way to handle it.”

Government agencies usually refer matters to the FBI if they suspect criminal activity.

A Treasury spokesman said last September that the agency had an investigation under way into the alleged delay of Silverado’s closing. But Buchan said Monday that Treasury didn’t investigate the matter. She said Treasury merely referred it to the FBI because that agency was also investigating Silverado.

In a June, 1990, hearing, a former federal thrift regulator told the House Banking Committee that his superiors in Washington had ordered him in October, 1988, to wait for two months before closing Silverado. Kermit Mowbray, former president of the now-defunct Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Topeka, Kan., testified under oath that his bosses ordered the delay despite a recommendation by field supervisors that Silverado be seized in October.

At the time, Neil Bush’s father, then vice president, was making his successful run for the presidency.

The statements by Mowbray, who was the top S&L; regulator for the four-state region that includes Colorado, led to an investigation by Treasury’s inspector general, Donald E. Kirkendall.

Mowbray later said he did not recall who among his superiors had told him to postpone Silverado’s shutdown. Mowbray could not be reached for comment Monday.

Last October, Kirkendall wrote William J. Esposito, chief of the FBI’s White-Collar Crimes Section, that “I have closed the Office of Inspector General case on this matter and referred it to you.”

“We are interested in determining whether any employee or employees of the (Federal Home Loan Bank Board) delayed the decision to close Silverado. We would appreciate it if you could keep us advised as the case progresses.”

Kirkendall also told Timothy Ryan, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, that he had asked the FBI to include Mowbray’s allegations in its inquiry.

FBI spokesman Stephen Markardt said Monday: “We’re looking at Silverado in the same context we are looking at all the other (failed) savings and loans.

“At this point, there have been no indictments,” he said. “There have been no individuals targeted at this point.”

Markardt declined further comment. He said Esposito would not be available to be interviewed.