'Debategate' Figure Indicted

W A S H I N G T O N, March 6 -- A federal grand jury has indicted Juanita Yvette Lozano, former aide to a media firm contracted by George W. Bush, for allegedly mailing his secret debate preparation material to Democratic rival Al Gore's team during the heat of campaign battle last year.

Lozano faces 15 years in prison and a $75,000 fine if convicted on all three counts: mail fraud, making false statements to the FBI and perjury before a grand jury.

Lozano was an employee of Maverick Media, an Austin, Texas, firm that did consulting work for Bush.

"If the allegations are true," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters today, "We are very surprised and very disappointed."

The Bush campaign had repeatedly insisted the person behind the pilfered debate materials must have been from the Gore team.

Last fall, secret briefing books and videotape of Bush's debate preparations were mailed from Austin to Gore confidant Tom Downey, who immediately turned the material over to authorities.

'Good Luck — Amy'

The indictment, returned by a grand jury in Austin, Texas, charges Lozano under two mail fraud statutes. Stealing and leaking the material to the political enemy, the indictment charges, amounted to a scheme to "defraud the Bush campaign of valuable property" and "to defraud and deprive" her employer of "honest and faithful services, performed free from deceit, bias, self-dealing, embezzlement and concealment."

Lozano, at the time an assistant to Maverick head Mark McKinnon, emerged early on as one of the main targets of FBI suspicion, after she was captured on a post office surveillance camera mailing a package on Sept. 11 — the day the debate prep material was mailed. The package containing the sensitive material arrived Sept. 13 in Downey's Washington office with a cover note reading, "I will call you soon to find out what other materials can be useful to the VP… Good luck — Amy."

The indictment charges Lozano shipped the package under the pseudonym "Amy Smith."