Bush brother's divorce reveals sex romps
cnn.com
Tuesday, November 25, 2003 Posted: 10:15 PM EST (0315 GMT)
HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) -- Neil Bush, younger brother of President
Bush, detailed lucrative business deals and admitted to engaging in sex
romps with women in Asia in a deposition taken in March as part of his
divorce from now ex-wife Sharon Bush.
According to legal documents disclosed
Tuesday, Sharon Bush's lawyers
questioned Neil Bush closely about the
deals, especially a contract with Grace
Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a
firm backed by Jiang Mianheng, the son
of former Chinese President Jiang
Zemin, that would pay him $2 million in
stock over five years.
Marshall Davis Brown, lawyer for Sharon
Bush, expressed bewilderment at why
Grace would want Bush and at such a
high price since he knew little about the
semiconductor business.
"You have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors do you?" asked
Brown.
"That's correct," Bush, 48, responded in the March 4 deposition, a transcript of which
was read by Reuters after the Houston Chronicle first reported on the documents.
"And you have absolutely over the last 10, 15, 20 years not a lot of demonstrable
business experience that would bring about a company investing $2 million in you?"
"I personally would object to the assumption that they're investing $2 million in me,"
said Bush, who went on to explain that he knew a lot about business and had been
working in Asia for years.
Bush, who inked the Grace deal in August 2002, said he had not yet received any
stock from the company, which built a plant in Shanghai that began production in
September. He is supposed to consult for the company and be on the board of
directors, he said.
He said he joined the Grace board at the request of Winston Wong, a co-founder of
the company and the son of Wang Yung-ching, the chairman of Taiwan's largest
business group, Formosa Plastics Corp. Bush never mentioned Jiang Mianheng in
the deposition.
Wong, he said, also is an investor in his latest venture, Ignite!, an Austin, Texas,
educational software firm.
A representative at Grace's U.S. office in California had no comment on the Bush
contract.
Brown questioned Bush about numerous other business ventures that paid him well
to be a consultant and fundraiser, and, in at least one case, for little work.
Bush said he was co-chairman of Crest Investment Corporation, but worked only an
average of three to four hours a week. For that, he received $15,000 every three
months.
Bush said he provided Crest "miscellaneous consulting services."
"Such as?" asked Brown.
"Such as answering phone calls when Jamail Daniel, the other co-chairman, called
and asked for advice," Bush said.
Bush did not return calls to his Ignite! office and his divorce lawyer, Rick Flowers,
was not available for comment.
Bush is the third of five children in the family of former President Bush and wife
Barbara.
He was involved in a business controversy in the late 1980s when he was director of
Denver, Colorado-based Silverado Savings & Loan, which collapsed at a cost to
taxpayers of $1 billion.
He denied any wrongdoing, but was sanctioned by the federal government for his
part in the failure.
The Bush divorce, completed in April after 23 years of marriage, was prompted in
part by Bush's relationship with another woman. He admitted in the deposition that
he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong
Kong at least five years ago.
The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had
sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never
asked for money and he did not pay them.
"Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a
hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with
her," Brown said.
"It was very unusual," Bush said.
Other presidential siblings of the past have generated controversy, among them Billy
Carter, who marketed "Billy Beer" to cash in on brother Jimmy's presidency, and
more recently Roger Clinton, who was accused of trying to broker pardons at the end
of President Clinton's administration.
Copyright 2003 Reuters.
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