WASHINGTON IN BRIEF

Contractor Pleads Guilty To Campaign Fund Scam

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The director of a defense contractor's office in Virginia pleaded guilty yesterday to illegally funneling campaign donations to Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. (R-Va.), an act that the contractor has said was meant to obtain Goode's help in arranging defense funding for his company.

Richard A. Berglund, a manager for MZM Inc. in Martinsville, Va., said he violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by helping MZM's owner, Mitchell J. Wade, donate the funds in the name of others. He pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor that could mean a year in jail when he is sentenced Jan. 18.

Berglund and his wife donated $4,000 in checks to "Representative A" in March 2005 after Wade handed Berglund $3,000 in cash. Berglund contributed an additional $1,000 of his own money. Berglund also admitted giving another $4,000 he received from Wade to two MZM colleagues, who in turn donated it to the congressman.

Goode's office has acknowledged that he is Representative A, but the lawmaker was unaware that the Berglund donations were illegal "straw" contributions.

Homeland Security Taps Teufel as Privacy Chief

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The Homeland Security Department selected one of its lawyers, Hugo Teufel III, as its new chief privacy officer. Teufel, who worked as a lawyer at the Interior Department, has been associate general counsel at the DHS.

Privacy advocates expressed concerns about what they described as Teufel's apparent lack of experience. "This is not an appropriate appointment," said Marc Rotenberg, head of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has been critical of DHS policies. "He lacks the relevant experience."

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement that Teufel is "highly regarded throughout the department and the legal community for his expertise on privacy, employee relations and civil rights issues."

Teufel was the Interior Department lawyer who advised officials there in the 2004 dismissal of Teresa Chambers as chief of the U.S. Park Police. She was fired after she complained publicly that she needed more officers and funding, and she subsequently lost her legal fight to grant her whistle-blower protections.

Tiny Drop in Doctors With Medicare Patients

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Limiting the fees that Medicare pays to doctors has apparently not stopped them from taking Medicare patients, and most people trying to find care under the program have been able to, according to a government report released yesterday.

Some groups have predicted that doctors would drop out of the Medicare program if they are not compensated enough. But the Government Accountability Office found no evidence that people had more trouble finding doctors to care for them.

"Nationwide, no more than about 7 percent of beneficiaries reported a major access difficulty," the report said.

The report said concerns "were heightened in 2002 when Medicare's formula for setting physician fees required a 5.4 percent reduction," but doctors evidently were not discouraged from providing care. "Only a small fraction -- less than 4 percent -- of physicians responded that they did not accept any new Medicare patients," the report said.

-- By staff writer Eric Weiss and news reports