The final bill included much of the language Casey wrote, although the earmark was slashed to $14 million, he said.
After initially receiving $4 million in Pentagon contracts under the 1994 earmark, Audre had no further awards, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1995.
By then, Wilkes had left Audre. He began setting up a competing firm, ADCS, in 1995. Two years later, ADCS received a $5-million contract to digitize Pentagon documents and engineering drawings.
John Scofield, the Lewis spokesman, said that the bill-writing episode "just didn't happen."
Scofield cast doubt that an aide to Lewis, then a junior committee member and a member of the minority party, would exercise such influence.
"Nobody has any recollection of this happening, nor any recollection of any staff ever doing this with any lobbyist on any occasion," Scofield said. "Somebody is giving you some bad information."
In a statement released late Wednesday, Lewis said he supported funding the Pentagon document conversion project with the encouragement of several colleagues in Congress, including the Democratic chair of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
"Throughout my career, I have urged the Pentagon to consider promising new technologies by hardworking small businesses," the statement said.
Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for White, said that she had no recollection of the bill-writing episode described by Casey.
A November 1994 article in Federal Computer Week said Lewis "appears to have played the biggest role on the Hill as an Audre advocate," writing letters to defense officials urging them to expand the program.
The obscure trade journal also uncovered in financial disclosure reports that White, then Lewis' aide, had bought stock in Audre on Nov. 3, 1993, one week before the passage of the final bill.
Dorton said only that White's stock ownership was disclosed in accordance with House rules.
Casey stood by his story, though his veracity has been challenged on another subject. In 1998, he was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of concealing a loan from his company. He paid back the loan with interest and settled the case without admitting or denying the allegations.
Wilkes declined to be interviewed.
Willis-Leon asked The Times to submit further questions in writing, but had not responded to the queries late Wednesday.
