Calls Taped, Virginia’s Wilder Says

RICHMOND, Va. — Gov. L. Douglas Wilder said Friday that someone has been recording conversations from the cellular telephone in his state limousine and passing the information to his Democratic Party rival, U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.).

Wilder, in a telephone interview from Bonn, Germany, where he is in the middle of an 11-day European trade mission, said: “It’s wiretapping and it’s a criminal act.”

Wilder’s chief of staff, J. T. Shropshire, met late Friday with State Police Supt. William F. Corvello about the governor’s remarks, but it could not be learned whether the agency intends to investigate.

Robb’s press secretary, Steve Johnson, said: “Neither Sen. Robb nor anyone on his staff has been involved in providing tapes to anyone or playing such tapes for Democrats.”

Wilder said Friday there was “no connection at all” between the tapes and last month’s abortive state police investigation that followed an NBC broadcast on Robb’s personal life.