The Tale Of Joe And Enid: From D.C. To Disaster

SALT LAKE CITY - People believed him when he called himself Episcopalian, even though he is Jewish. But so many other stories Joe Waldholtz told stretched the credulity of friends.

He once let drop how in high school he worked at an Arby's restaurant - purely as a lark, of course, considering his supposed great wealth, says Gregory Hughes, Waldholtz's friend since 1988.

"He said his stockbroker would always interrupt him on his shift to talk to him on the phone, and his employer didn't like it," Hughes says.

Hughes, a homebuilder in Provo, Utah, remembers shaking his head and smiling at the tale, but Enid Greene fell for it completely. Just like she fell for Joe.

"There wasn't one bit of hesitation on her part," Hughes says. "She believed him."

Joe and Enid married in August 1993, in a civil service officiated by Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and attended by more than 500 guests. The guest list was a Who's Who of Republicans from around Utah and beyond.

And then came Enid's successful second campaign for the U.S. House. And on the night of Aug. 31, a little girl, their first child and only the second baby ever born to a sitting member of Congress.

And then it all unraveled.

On Friday, after six days as a fugitive, Joe, 32, surrendered in Washington. Authorities say he may have kited more than $1.5 million in checks; his family believes he may have bilked $600,000 from his ailing grandmother.

Now, Enid Greene Waldholtz, 37, the honorable member of the House of Representatives from Utah's 2nd District, wants a divorce while she fights to salvage her career.

A passion for politics

Enid Greene's passion for politics began early. As a teenager in Salt Lake City, she would read U.S. News & World Report while her sister hung posters of pop stars on the wall. In high school, she was a self-described nerd.

Then something happened that changed her life: She canvassed Salt Lake precincts for her cousin, who was campaigning for city council.

At age 18, she was elected state chairwoman of the Young Republicans, defeating three older men.

It was at a Young Republicans convention in Newport Beach, Calif., that she met Joseph Waldholtz, the son of a Pittsburgh dentist.

He was an oversize man with a personality to match: 6-foot-2, well on his way to 300 pounds, cocky, gregarious, with a caustic wit inviting comparisons to Rush Limbaugh.

"Joe comes at you with one eyebrow higher than the other and one of those grins like he knows something you don't know," says Russ Behrmann, executive director of the Utah Republican Party.

While critics considered him a condescending blowhard, his friends found a generous and comfortable shadow in which to stand. His brash opinions were part of his magnetism - and Enid clearly felt the pull.

Enid and Joe soon were an item, each elated to have found someone else whose life spun on politics.

Joseph Waldholtz had discovered politics at the University of Pittsburgh.

As a political operative in Pennsylvania, he developed a bare-knuckled style that took more laid-back Utahns by surprise when he moved here in 1992 to help Enid in her first congressional campaign.

Joe was Republican - but flexible. Once not opposed to abortion, he'd changed his views by the time he headed to Utah, says Joe's friend Mike O'Connell.

He also made sure others thought he was wealthy, spending money freely, grabbing the dinner check before others could, O'Connell says. What he didn't tell them was that before he moved to Salt Lake, he lived expense-free in a room in his parents' house.

The campaign coffers

With Joe's help, Enid ran for Congress in 1992. Her losing battle against Democratic incumbent Karen Shepherd was one of Utah's most negative campaigns ever - and, after the election, Joe became executive director of the Utah Republican Party.

With Joe managing the campaign coffers, Enid tried again in 1994 for Shepherd's seat.

Two months before the election, she was running third in the polls. But, just in time, she blasted ahead with a last-minute infusion of $1 million. She claimed it was her own money, skirting questions by saying only that she and her new husband "had been blessed."

She went on to become a darling of the freshman GOP class. House Speaker Newt Gingrich took a shine to her, and she became the first freshman in 70 years to win a seat on the powerful Rules Committee.

The birth of Elizabeth Greene Waldholtz only helped the couple's image. Enid brought her baby to the House floor when she was 13 days old, casting her vote while Elizabeth slept.

But even as People magazine featured mother and baby in a light-hearted piece about the new mom in Congress, more serious questions were being raised back home about the Waldholtz' finances.

The "blessed" $1 million turned out to have been part of a loan from Enid's parents, made in exchange for assets Joe said he brought to their marriage in a trust fund.

In recent weeks, as questions mounted about discrepancies on the congresswoman's filings with the Federal Election Commission, Enid said the money was tied up in accounts held by Joe's relatives.

She promised a more complete accounting as soon as she unearthed more details. Joe, however, apparently balked at providing them.

Meanwhile, other questions surfaced about financial improprieties dating back to the 1994 campaign, when three staff members resigned in protest of Joe's handling of money.

Answering reports of bad checks and unpaid credit cards, Enid said thieves had stolen Joe's checks and credit card and run up bills.

On Nov. 11, Joe went to Washington's National Airport with his wife's brother-in-law, Jim Parkinson. He promised Parkinson a long-awaited accounting, saying they'd meet representatives of the Waldholtz Family Trust flying in from Pittsburgh.

While waiting in the airport, Joe said he needed to make a phone call. Instead, he vanished - taking his wife's car keys and leaving her stranded.

"I can't begin to describe the anger and hurt over the incredible level of deception that we have uncovered in our own investigation of Joe's activities," Enid said Tuesday in announcing she was filing for divorce. The congresswoman added that her husband may have had access to about $2 million when he disappeared.

It appears he used his friends in the deceptions, too, O'Connell says.

"Something Else Missing: Enid's Explanation," read Thursday's headline in The Salt Lake Tribune. And even state Republican leaders were edging away from full support.

If Joe Waldholtz lied to Enid, friends believe he was only trying to protect her.

"In a very unfortunate and unhealthy way, Joe had probably worked out in his own mind that he was doing it for Enid's good, and that it would all work out all right," says David Owen, a GOP consultant.

The central questions left are as vital as they are cliched: How much did Enid know, and when did she know it?

"Sometimes we believe the things we want to believe," Owen says. "Enid's biggest fault is that she trusted the man she married. Usually, that ain't such a bad thing."