Tony Coehlo

Anthony L. Coelho Profile -

Mr. Coelho was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1978 to 1989. After leaving ... Service Corp Intl - 296th on the Forbes 500s (Assets) in 2003 ...

people.forbes.com/profile/anthony-l-coelho/71183

http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-10-12/news/nation/
Excerpt:
Coehlo's Wavy Gravy New questions about Gore campaign chair Tony Coehlo's controversial role as U.S. commissioner of the Expo '98 World Fair in Lisbon, while Coehlo was promoting the Luso-American Wave Foundation, were made public last week by the Center for Public Integrity. (Coehlo was briefly eased out of the spotlight by the appointment of Donna Brazile, the Dukakis aide who was tagged as a smear artist in the 1988 presidential campaign after she called then vice president Bush a philanderer. Is Gore looking for trouble?) According to the Center, Coehlo didn't include a controversial $300,000 personal loan from a Lisbon bank in a federal financial-disclosure report he filed in 1998, an apparent violation of the ethics-in-government act. The disclosure form showed that he made more than $1.8 million in 1997 and had a net worth of $10 million. Coehlo's lawyer, Stanley Brand, initially told reporters that the loan "was paid off" with "donations"— including a large contribution from Coehlo himself. Later, however, Brand said that Coehlo "is in the process of paying off" the loan and still owes $109,000. A report by the State Department's inspector general raised the question of whether the government is responsible for the loan, since it was held for a time in a government account while Coehlo was running the fair. The potential liability could increase since the Foundation got contributions ranging from $100 to $5000 from Portuguese Americans whose names were to be engraved on a Lisbon monument called The Wave, erected to honor families that had emigrated to the U.S. Even now a Web site urges visitors to "contribute to the Wave and have your name engraved on the monument." However, no names have ever been engraved on the monument, and Luso-American's certificate of incorporation was revoked last month in Washington, D.C., "for having failed and/or refused to file any of the reports required by law." It was never granted tax-exempt status by the IRS, and in fact was officially incorporated seven months after Coehlo first sought donations and two months after the fair closed. The Center maintained that "throughout the fair the Foundation was no more than a toll-free telephone number and a mailing address within the offices of a Washington lobbying firm." The loan was paid off last week with Coehlo's personal funds, Brand said. The former congressman received the loan after the deadline for filing the personal-disclosure form. The IRS tax-exempt application is pending. As for the money to put names on the monument, it went to build the structure, Brand said. Coehlo's disclosure statement also reveals that he is a major investor in Portuguese funeral parlors, holding more than $1 million worth of stock in Service Corporation International, the behemoth mortuary conglomerate that allegedly was involved in irregularities in George W. Bush's gubernatorial reelection campaign (seeMondo Washington, July 20). SCI allegedly pumped money into Bush's campaign in hopes he could gut Texas Funeral Commission rules banning the employment of cheapo contract embalmers.
Coehlo's involvement with the U.S.-based firm was aimed at helping it get a foothold in the lucrative Portuguese undertaking market, which features one-stop "death supermarkets," including embalming, chapels, and even restaurants for mourners under one roof. SCI, from which Coehlo drew $283,000 in director's fees and other compensation during 1998, reportedly contracted with the Catholic Church in Lisbon to bury approximately 5000 parishioners a year.