Fred's Follies

A N.Y. Congressman resigns

Shortly before 9 a.m. one day last week, an expensively dressed gentleman slipped into Brooklyn federal court through a back door. Hands clasped behind him, he stood before Judge Charles Sifton and softly recited his crimes. Then, after pleading guilty, Democratic Congressman Frederick Richmond of Brooklyn agreed to resign immediately from the House of Representatives and not seek reelection to a fifth term.

It was a seemingly inevitable end for a politician whose life had gone badly awry. Richmond's woes had been attracting tabloid headlines for years. In 1978 he was arrested in Washington for sexually soliciting a 16-year-old delivery boy. In spite of that, he handily won re-election that year and again in 1980. Last January, however, the Justice Department, acting on a federal civil suit that revealed financial improprieties with the Walco National Corp. of New York, which Richmond controlled, began an investigation of the Congressman. Last week Rich mond, 58, pleaded guilty to tax evasion, possessing marijuana cigarettes obtained from his staff and making an illegal payment of $7,420 to a Navy employee who had been helpful in winning Government contracts for a Brooklyn ship-repair firm.

But the charges might have been a good deal worse for the Congressman, multimillionaire founder of Walco, maker of products ranging from motors to coffins. In exchange for his guilty plea, the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute Richmond for an array of other possible crimes, including ordering his staff to buy him cocaine, receiving an ille gal $100,000 annual pension from Walco and helping find a job as a mailroom clerk in the House for Earl Randolph, a fugitive who had been serving an 18-year term for aggravated assault in Massachusetts. After leaving the House job, Randolph was arrested for male prostitution by an undercover police officer, who then discov ered Randolph was an escaped convict.

Several weeks ago, Government lawyers told Richmond of the evidence against him; after negotiating, he struck his deal. Richmond, who will be sentenced in November, faces maximum penalties of seven years in jail and a $20,000 fine.

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