WASHINGTON, April 28 Dr. Lester M. Crawford, the former commissioner of
food and drugs, is under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury over
accusations of financial improprieties and false statements to Congress, his
lawyer said Friday.
The lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, would not discuss the accusations further. In
a court hearing held by telephone on Thursday, she told a federal magistrate
that she would instruct Dr. Crawford to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against
compelled self-incrimination if ordered to answer questions this week about his
actions as head of the Food and Drug Administration, according to a transcript
of the hearing.
Dr. Crawford did not reply to messages seeking comment, and Kathleen Quinn,
an F.D.A. spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Dr. Crawford resigned in September, fewer than three months after the Senate
confirmed him. He said then that it was time for someone else to lead the
agency.
The next month, financial disclosure forms released by the Department of
Health and Human Services showed that in 2004 either Dr. Crawford or his wife,
Catherine, had sold shares in companies regulated by the agency when he was its
deputy commissioner and acting commissioner. He has since joined a Washington
lobbying firm, Policy Directions Inc.
The criminal investigation was disclosed at a court hearing in a lawsuit over
the F.D.A.'s actions on the emergency contraceptive Plan B, a subject of bitter
contention during Dr. Crawford's tenure as acting commissioner and commissioner.
After the pill's maker, Barr Laboratories, applied three years ago to sell the
pill over the counter, the agency repeatedly delayed making a decision on the
application.
While many lawmakers, abortion rights advocates and former F.D.A. officials
said the delays had resulted from politics, Dr. Crawford and other agency
officials said their concerns were scientific and legal.
An advocacy group, the Center for Reproductive Rights, sued the agency in
federal court in New York over the delays. Many such suits are quickly
dismissed, but a federal judge allowed the case to proceed, giving the center
the right to interview top F.D.A. officials, including Dr. Crawford.
Dr. Crawford was scheduled to be questioned under oath on Thursday, but on
Wednesday Ms. Van Gelder, who is his personal lawyer, asked for a delay, saying
she would instruct him to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. Dr. Crawford
previously declined to answer questions from the Government Accountability
Office about Plan B.
Ms. Van Gelder told Magistrate Judge Viktor V. Pohorelsky of the District
Court for the Eastern District of New York on Thursday that Dr. Crawford had
been represented by Justice Department lawyers in the reproductive rights
center's suit.
According to the transcript, she said that Dr. Crawford was under criminal
investigation and that the issue of his financial disclosures "is within the
grand jury."
Before Dr. Crawford's confirmation, the secretary of health and human
services, Michael O. Leavitt, promised that the F.D.A. would act
on the Plan B application by September 2005, a promise that led two Democratic
senators, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Patty Murray of
Washington, to relent in their efforts to delay the nomination. But after he was
confirmed, Dr. Crawford announced an indefinite delay that has remained in
effect.
Simon Heller, a lawyer for the reproductive rights center, noted that the
F.D.A. had long insisted that its actions regarding Plan B were not unusual.
"It would be remarkable if the Justice Department was conducting a criminal
investigation of Plan B and at the same time asserting in a civil case that
everything done was normal," Mr. Heller said.
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