The Associated Press
Saturday, December 5, 1998; Page A04

The House ethics committee will resume its investigation of Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), the panel said yesterday.

The committee had suspended part of its investigation in deference to the Justice Department, which feared the House action would interfere with pending criminal charges against Shuster's former chief of staff, Ann Eppard.

The ethics committee, in a one-line statement, said its investigative subcommittee "will proceed with interviews and depositions of witnesses" in connection with the case.

The committee's chief counsel, Theodore J. Van Der Meid, refused to say whether the decision was made with the Justice Department's approval, and the U.S. attorney's office in Boston did not immediately return a telephone call for comment.

The panel, known formally as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, has been reviewing the professional and personal ties between Shuster and Eppard since she became a lobbyist in 1994 after 22 years with the congressman.

Shuster's office said he looks forward to having the matter resolved.

Earlier this year, Shuster helped enact a $203 billion measure with several projects benefiting Eppard's clients. Her lobbying firm earned more than $1.4 million last year from clients with business before Shuster's panel.

Eppard is awaiting trial in Boston on charges of taking $230,000 in illegal payments while she was Shuster's chief of staff to influence the $11 billion "Big Dig" highway construction project in Boston and of embezzling $27,500 from Shuster's campaign committee, for which she served as assistant treasurer. She has pleaded not guilty.