Ex-Heckler Aide Indicted in Fraud Case

WASHINGTON — C. McClain Haddow, former chief of staff to the secretary of health and human services, was indicted Wednesday on charges of fraudulently obtaining more than $30,000 from a charitable foundation and of taking kickbacks on contracts to write speeches for former Secretary Margaret M. Heckler.

In a seven-count indictment, Haddow was charged with secretly routing $33,540 in payments from the nonprofit T. Bear Foundation, which he helped create while at the Department of Health and Human Services, to a Senate credit union account that Haddow controlled with his wife, Alice.

As a health department official, the indictment said, Haddow urged numerous health care corporations to contribute to the foundation, which was created to promote hand-washing by children. He then pocketed 90% of the foundation’s monthly payments to Michelle Magoon, a Haddow associate who was hired as a fund-raiser at his behest, according to the indictment.

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury here, resulted from an investigation by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section that was set off by a report in the Washington Post last June. The Post reported that Alice Haddow had secretly received more than $30,000 in T. Bear Foundation payments without the knowledge of foundation officers and that the money was routed through Magoon.

Haddow’s attorney, Brian P. Gettings, a former U.S. attorney in Alexandria, Va., said Wednesday that Haddow is “guilty of no wrongdoing.”