Investigator Grants Immunity to Cisneros’ Ex-Mistress

In a development that could spell deeper legal trouble for Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, his former mistress has been given immunity from prosecution in return for her help in determining whether Cisneros conspired with her to hide information from the FBI, The Times learned Thursday.

Sources familiar with the inquiry said that the woman, Linda Medlar, has been given so-called “use immunity” by David M. Barrett, the independent counsel investigating whether false statements Cisneros made to FBI agents violated federal law. Cisneros made the statements during the FBI’s routine background investigation of him while he was under consideration for a Cabinet nomination by President Clinton in 1992.

Cisneros has acknowledged his widely reported affair with Medlar, an aide when he was mayor of San Antonio, and that he had been paying her support for some time after the relationship broke up in late 1989.

However, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno sought the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate after concluding that Cisneros had substantially understated the amounts of those payments in his statements to the FBI.

The special court that selected Barrett last May directed him to determine whether those false statements were material and serious enough to warrant prosecution and whether Cisneros had unlawfully conspired with others to conceal information from the FBI.

With Barrett’s inquiry underway for nearly a year, sources sympathetic to Cisneros noted Thursday that investigators may be having trouble corroborating information Medlar is providing. The use immunity was given earlier this year, after Medlar initially turned a cold shoulder to agents and attorneys last fall, one legal source said.

Transcripts of telephone conversations between Cisneros and Medlar, which she surreptitiously taped for nearly four years, supported Medlar’s allegation that he lied to the FBI during the background investigation, Reno concluded last year.

Cisneros told the FBI that he paid Medlar sums no greater than $2,500 at a time and no more than $10,000 a year.

“In fact, he paid her more than $2,500 at various times, and his total annual payments to her were between $42,000 and $60,000,” Reno said. “Secretary Cisneros’ statement was made to the FBI soon after he made a payment to Medlar that was substantially larger than $2,500.”

The transcripts, most of which were obtained earlier by The Times, indicate Cisneros was deeply concerned that the size and timing of the payments to Medlar could derail his Cabinet appointment.

Asked by Medlar how he would handle questions about the payments at his Senate confirmation hearings, Cisneros replied, according to the transcripts: “The subject probably is not even going to come up.”

Later, he told Medlar: “If it does, I’ll tell them what we agreed and the only person in the world who can sink me at that point . . . and I’m talking contempt of Congress--jail--is you.”

As it turned out, the matter was not raised publicly at the hearings by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

Cono R. Namorato, Cisneros’ lawyer, declined comment when asked about the grant of immunity to Medlar. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment since the matter is under investigation,” he said.

A White House spokesman also declined comment.

Barrett would not speak with a reporter about the investigation, on which he has spent $667,000 through March 31, according to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. After checking with him, a secretary said that “it is against the law to give out any information.”

Medlar provided some of the taped conversations with Cisneros to a tabloid television show, which paid her $15,000 for an interview. She also sued the Housing secretary for $250,000 in damages that she said she had suffered for breach of a verbal contract allegedly made to support her.

Cisneros settled that suit a year ago by agreeing to pay Medlar $49,000, winning a pledge from her not to comment further on the matter.

Floyd Holder, an attorney who represented Medlar in her civil suit, said that he is no longer her lawyer and that she has no representation. He would not discuss Barrett’s investigation.

Medlar has an unlisted telephone number in Lubbock, Texas, and could not be reached.

But a source familiar with the matter said that she had obtained the “use immunity” earlier this year, agreeing to cooperate with Barrett’s inquiry. The source said that the agreement provided “I’ll tell the truth if you won’t go after me.”