Former HUD Aide Charged in Scandal of Reagan Era : Housing: The onetime top assistant to Secretary Pierce denies any wrongdoing. A special counsel says the investigation is not over.

WASHINGTON —  Deborah Gore Dean, a central figure in the HUD scandal of the Ronald Reagan Administration, was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday. She is accused of taking an illegal gratuity to perform official acts and then lying about it to a Senate committee.

The indictment charges Gore with demanding and accepting $4,000 from “a private individual” while she was executive assistant to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr.

Pierce is regarded as the central target of independent counsel Arlin M. Adams’ inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing in the department--among them suggestions that Pierce lied during congressional testimony about actions he took at HUD. There also have been suggestions that he practiced illegal political favoritism in administering HUD programs.

No charges have been filed against Pierce, and there was no suggestion of wrongdoing by him in Dean’s indictment.

Adams said in a statement, however, that investigation of other HUD transactions, including some involving Dean, was continuing.

Dean, 37, proclaimed her innocence. She said she found it “devastating” to be “falsely accused of selling my public office.”

She said Adams and his staff know that she is innocent, but that they “have hoped, by threatening to ruin my reputation with an onslaught of accusations, that I would relent, plead guilty, testify against my bosses at HUD and, in doing so, become an enthusiastic accomplice in the pursuit of their brand of justice.”

Dean, the daughter of influential Maryland Republicans, came to HUD without previous housing experience. She headed the department’s executive secretariat and was a special assistant to Pierce from November, 1982, until May, 1984. For the next three years, she was Pierce’s executive assistant.

It was in that capacity, on April 29, 1987, the grand jury charged, that Dean demanded and accepted a check for $4,000 for performing official acts in connection with the unnamed individual’s requests for funds under HUD’s Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation program.

That program, criticized by a House Government Operations subcommittee as showing political favoritism, was designed to stimulate rehabilitation of substandard rental housing and to subsidize rents for low-income families.

In June, 1987, the indictment charged, Dean made a false statement to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which was considering her nomination to be a HUD assistant secretary.

In the statement, she said she knew of no investment, obligation, liability or other relationship of hers that might involve conflict of interest, although she had accepted the $4,000 check only two months earlier.

The maximum penalty for conviction on the illegal gratuity charge would be two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. If convicted on the false statement count, Dean could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In January, Adams obtained his first indictment in his two-year investigation of Lance H. Wilson, a former senior HUD employee who was accused of fraud, conspiracy and making false statements in connection with HUD projects after he left the department.

Wilson, who preceded Dean as Pierce’s executive assistant, has pleaded innocent to the charges.