  We show that in a large class of models based on anomalous U(1) symmetry
which addresses the fermion mass hierarchy problem, leptonic flavor changing
processes are induced that are in the experimentally interesting range. The
flavor violation occurs through the renormalization group evolution of the soft
SUSY breaking parameters between the string scale and the U(1)_A breaking
scale. We derive general expressions for the evolution of these parameters in
the presence of higher dimensional operators. Several sources for the flavor
violation are identified: flavor-dependent contributions to the soft masses
from the U(1)_A gaugino, scalar mass corrections proportional to the trace of
U(1)_A charge, non-proportional A-terms from vertex corrections, and the U(1)_A
D-term. Quantitative estimates for the decays \mu -> e \gamma and \tau -> \mu
\gamma are presented in supergravity models which accommodate the relic
abundance of neutralino dark matter.
