STREET TALK

Federal and state investigators in Texas couldn’t help but notice a recent story in the Wall Street Journal that detailed the testimony in a Miami federal court by Steven S. Samos, a Panama businessman who has been given immunity by the government. Samos has admitted that he was in the business of creating Panamanian shell corporations that he sold to foreigners (primarily Americans) to reduce taxes and shelter assets.

The newspaper report has poured some salt in old wounds and could put investigators back on the paper trail of former Dallas oilman Pat Holloway, whose business activities have been the subject of numerous civil proceedings. Documents filed last year in a civil lawsuit referred to a visit Holloway made to Panama on behalf of a man he says was a former client and a stockholder in a Panamanian corporation known as Emerald Green Holding Corporation. In an affidavit, Holloway said he had no financial interest in Emerald Green, nor did he have anything to do with a $2 million transfer of funds into Emerald Green’s account in one | of Samos’s banks,

“In February 1984,I went to Panama at the request of Mr. Samos. There he showed me copies of certain documents, other copies that he told me had been obtained there by Robbie Holloway [Holloway’s ex-wife], an American attorney, an American investigator, and a local attorney,” Holloway said.

However, the minutes of a 1980 meeting in Panama of the shareholders of Emerald Green reveal that Holloway was present and “representing the shareholders” of Emerald Green.



Looks as though the Dallas School Board could be headed down a rocky road, now that school Supt. Linus Wright has told trustees he plans to stay on at least another year as the school district’s boss. Wright’s decision came after several of the minority board members made it public they want a black school superintendent. Now that there are four minority school trustees and a black board president, observers say the board could move the district in a new direction on such issues as taxes, affirmative action, staffing, and so-called super-schools.