- (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.
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- According to legal documents disclosed today, 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.
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- 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.
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- "You have absolutely no educational background in
semiconductors do you?" asked Brown in the March 4 deposition, which
was seen by Reuters.
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- "That's correct," Bush, 48, responded.
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- "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?"
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- "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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Wong, he said, also is an investor in his latest venture,
Ignite!, an Austin, Texas, educational software firm.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Bush said he provided Crest "miscellaneous consulting
services."
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- "Such as?" asked Brown.
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- "Such as answering phone calls when Jamail Daniel,
the other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Bush said.
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- "Well, you're not an economist are you?"
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- "Part of my degree is in international economics,
but I wouldn't consider myself an economist, no," Bush told him.
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- Bush did not return calls to his Ignite! office and his
divorce lawyer, Rick Flowers, was not available for comment.
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- KNOCKS ON THE DOOR
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- The Bush divorce, completed in April, 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.
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- The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his
hotel room, entered and engaged in 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.
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- "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.
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- "It was very unusual," Bush said.
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- Even though the Bush divorce is final, legal problems
continue.
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- Sharon Bush has been sued by Robert Andrews, the former
husband of Neil Bush's girlfriend, Maria Andrews, for allegedly charging
that the Andrews' 2-year-old son, was fathered by Bush, not Andrews.
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- Bush this week gave a DNA sample at the request of his
ex-wife, but it is not clear when it will be tested, her lawyer, David
Berg, said today.
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