Mayor: ‘I’ll Be Stronger’ for the Struggle : Embattled Hedgecock Still Hopes Not to Resign to Avoid Retrial

Saying that “life’s too short to play ‘what-if,’ ” Mayor Roger Hedgecock insists that he has “no serious second thoughts” about personal and campaign financial transactions that led to his felony trial, adding that he would “do things pretty much the same” if he had them to do over again.

While he reiterated his intention not to resign to avoid a retrial, Hedgecock said he might consider stepping aside if the case “becomes such a drain on me, my family and the city” that the potential benefits to be gained by his fight to stay in office “are outweighed by the emotional distress . . . and damage to San Diego.”

During a two-hour interview last week, one week after his Superior Court case on felony conspiracy and perjury charges ended in a mistrial with the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction, Hedgecock:

- Argued that it would be “all but impossible” for him to get a fair retrial in San Diego because of extensive publicity. But he said that seeking a change of venue would be “a political impossibility.”

- Said the trial was “like a war” that exacted a “huge personal toll, psychologically and monetarily.” Although his two young sons have been taunted by playmates and his legal bill is, according to one close aide, “upwards of six figures,” Hedgecock said the “crisis brought our family closer together.”

- Defended his controversial $130,000 oral agreement loan from former J. David & Co. principal Nancy Hoover--the transaction that triggered the probe of his finances--as “cleaner and more preferable than” a conventional bank loan would have been.

- Conceded that his trial has “churned up deep divisions” in San Diego. However, because he is the focal point of the controversy, Hedgecock admitted that he probably is “not in any position right now . . . to heal those wounds.”

“I’m pretty stubborn, and there’s something fundamental to my nature that makes it difficult for me to give up a fight when I feel I’m right,” Hedgecock said. “But you say, ‘When does the price become too high? When do you quit?’ Heck, I don’t know. This sounds like the discussion Travis and Bowie had at the Alamo just before the powder magazine went up.”

Throughout the interview, Hedgecock was alternately introspective, bitter and philosophical as he discussed his legal quagmire and the prospects of a retrial on charges stemming from allegedly illegal contributions to his 1983 campaign.

Although he described himself as “frustrated, weary and angry” about the yearlong controversy over his personal and campaign finances, Hedgecock also displayed occasional flashes of wry humor about the unenviable position in which he finds himself, as typified by his Alamo analogy.

For example, Hedgecock managed a slight smile when reminded of his pledge last year to place his assets--which at that time included two houses and about half a dozen rental units--into a blind trust to avoid future questions over his finances. One house and most of the rental units have since been sold, mostly to help pay his legal bills, and the mayor said that his South Mission Hills house likely will be his only major holding “by the time this thing is through.”

“This makes a blind trust unnecessary,” Hedgecock joked. “That’s a moot point.”

However, when asked how he can still joke about his predicament, Hedgecock replied quietly, “Most of the time I don’t.”

Indeed, Hedgecock spoke wistfully about the temporarily, if not permanently, lost promise of his mayoralty.

In the six months after his victory in a special May, 1983, election to replace Mayor Pete Wilson after Wilson’s ascension to the U.S. Senate, Hedgecock’s infectious enthusiasm for his new job and a string of major legislative achievements--notably, enactment of tighter growth-management rules, expansion of the San Diego Trolley and voters’ approval of a downtown convention center--raised his public approval rating to such heights that he appeared politically invincible.

However, those heady days “seem like another lifetime now,” Hedgecock said. “The irony of how this has gone so sour is pretty depressing. In ‘83, I felt great every morning, because I knew when I got up that I got to go to work to be mayor. It was the happiest time of my life.

“That’s why this experience has been so discouraging. What helps me get through it is the hope that at some point, we can get this behind us and I can get back to doing my job.”

Even if he survives a retrial and retains his office--a conviction on any of the felony counts likely would result in his ouster--Hedgecock conceded that he probably cannot hope to re-create the “honeymoon kind of spirit” evidenced in his early months at City Hall. Hedgecock emphasized, however, that he believes that he can still be “a strong, effective leader for the city.”

“It won’t be Camelot again, as I think it was, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get things done,” Hedgecock said. “But if I survive this . . . I think I’ll be stronger in some ways.

“The fact that I’m still here, months after people thought I was going to fold, is amazing in itself. It’s amazing to me. But if I can persevere, continue to advance the agenda of this city, then I think I will have gained a credibility that you only gain as a leader under fire.

“I think back on these guys like Harry Truman, who really were not supported by a majority of people during most of the time they were in office and were bedeviled by all kinds of problems. But they gained acceptance by the way they showed leadership in the face of that. I guess the silver lining I’m looking at is, if I come through this, I will have proven myself as a leader in a way that is very difficult to dispute.”

Adhering to his oft-stated contention that the district attorney’s office “had its shot and missed” in the first trial, Hedgecock repeated his hope--one that even he concedes is remote--that prosecutors will not retry the case. A date for the retrial is expected to be set at a hearing this week.

While Hedgecock argued that the 11-1 breakdown in the jurors’ vote “gave some ammunition to both my supporters and enemies,” he emphasized that he believes that the complexity of the case and the strong emotions it has generated on both sides make an outright acquittal or conviction unlikely in any future trial.

“What public good is going to be served by going around this mulberry bush again?” Hedgecock asked. “When are we going to say, ‘Enough!’? After two hung juries, five, 10? The D.A. had his chance to prove that I was wrong, and he missed. Some people say, well, yeah, but they got 11 votes for conviction. But this isn’t horseshoes. Close isn’t good enough. That’s not how it works under our legal system.

“Americans don’t like people to get screwed over by the government in an arbitrary way . . . and that’s what’s happening here. It’s no longer a prosecution. It’s become persecution. This has become a holy cause for the district attorney.

“Transparently, one of the motivations is to try to wear me down, to outlast me, psychologically as well as financially. It’s like, ‘If the first grand jury doesn’t indict, we’ll go to the second grand jury. If the first trial jury doesn’t convict him, we’ll go to the second trial jury. We’ll spend as much public time and money as it takes to get this guy.’ I don’t know that any citizen could withstand that kind of wearing down.

“But I don’t give up easily. I’m certainly going to hang in there. I think the D.A. should get off my back and let me run the office of mayor as I was elected to do.”

Pointing to several of Judge William L. Todd Jr.’s rulings that restricted the evidence that defense attorney Michael Pancer was allowed to introduce in the trial, Hedgecock characterized the trial as “a restrained and incomplete version of what actually was going on.”

In particular, the mayor argued that his defense was weakened by decisions by Todd that severely limited Pancer’s ability to pursue what Hedgecock views as a political vendetta by Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller and the Copley Press, which publishes the San Diego Union and Tribune, aimed at forcing him from office. Todd also did not permit Pancer to question other public officials about how they amended, without penalty, inaccurate financial disclosure statements--the source of the perjury charges facing Hedgecock.

“A standard of conduct is being applied to me that has been applied to no one else,” Hedgecock said. “The attitude of the district attorney’s office seems to be that you can make a mistake (on the financial reports) and amend it without it causing a problem, unless you’re Roger Hedgecock. I don’t think that point ever really got across to the jury.”

Two major strategic concerns trouble him about a potential second trial--the fact that some jurors in the first case said they put no credence in his testimony, and his belief that the chances of finding an impartial jury for a retrial “aren’t very realistic.”

“Obviously, when jurors say they don’t believe you, it makes you a little uneasy about going through the exercise again,” Hedgecock said, shaking his head. “Frankly, I’m bewildered by that reaction. All I can think is that some of the jurors already had their minds made up before I testified.”

Noting that Assistant Dist. Atty. Richard D. Huffman, who prosecuted the case, told the jury that “the mayor ought to be viewed as any other citizen,” Hedgecock said, “That clearly did not happen in this case.”

“Some of the jurors said . . . they not only expected more from a mayor, but that they didn’t believe my testimony because I was more intelligent than that, as if the mayor couldn’t make mistakes, for crying out loud. I don’t see how in the world a public official can get a fair trial under those circumstances.”

The extensive publicity surrounding the case also “makes it hard to imagine that there are 12 people in San Diego who haven’t formed an impression one way or the other,” Hedgecock argued. “How could anyone say a retrial would be fair from the standpoint of getting objective jurors?”

Another unattractive aspect to a second trial, Hedgecock said, is that it would prolong “the stress, the uncertainty and the terrible strain” on himself, his family and his friends.

“When I ran for mayor, I was prepared for a lot of things,” Hedgecock said. “But that didn’t include being called a criminal for engaging in the democratic process, for seeing friends hounded or put out of business, or for having my personal life and that of everyone around me ransacked. This has been the most horrible experience of my life. It doesn’t seem real. You feel like you’re living in ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ ”

Even the mayor’s political foes have expressed admiration for the resilience that he has shown in the face of the past year’s adversity. Despite the incessant pressure, Hedgecock said he is “able to compartmentalize and occasionally push this thing out of my mind” through a combination of physical exercise--he runs about three miles six days a week and exercises on a home workout bench several times weekly--and a heavy dose of book reading.

Throughout the trial, Hedgecock read several historical novels and biographies “to try to stay sane.” While the jury was deliberating, the mayor said, he read a book written by Nathan Shapell, head of Shapell Industries, about his experiences in a German concentration camp. Ironically, the book is titled, “Witness to the Truth.”

His major “source of strength” during the trial, however, was the support of his wife, Cindy, and the rest of his family, the mayor said.

“It was a rough time, but the crisis brought us all much closer,” Hedgecock said. “The boys had to put up with some kidding from friends, and it wasn’t very pleasant for Cindy or me to watch any sense of our personal privacy being destroyed.

“But at the same time, you can’t go home at night and look at my two boys and not feel like the fight you’re making is worth it. In the good times, you sometimes--unfortunately--take things and people for granted. There’s nothing like a crisis . . . to make you appreciate those around you.”

Asked whether he would now handle differently any of his personal and campaign financial transactions at issue in the trial, Hedgecock said his only regret was not “more thoroughly documenting” the controversial $130,000 loan from Hoover that he used to renovate his South Mission Hills house.

However, while conceding that public officials’ financial affairs generally are “held to a higher standard” than those of private citizens, Hedgecock argued that borrowing such a large sum of money from a friend was “not a mistake.” Moreover, the mayor added that, from his perspective, the Hoover loan was preferable to a conventional bank loan because it posed less potential for a conflict of interest.

“I assumed--and this may be where the naivete came in--that because Nancy Hoover and (J. David founder) Jerry Dominelli had nothing to do with the city, because their business was totally removed from city business, that borrowing money from (Hoover) was as clean a way as anything,” Hedgecock said.

“If I borrowed money from Great American Federal, which is financing half of the developers in town, that, to me, is a closer conflict of interest than if I borrow money from someone who is never going to be before the City Council for anything.”

Saying that his trial “churned up deep divisions in the community,” Hedgecock warned that a retrial might widen the split between supporters who believe that he is being “unfairly hounded . . . by a vindictive D.A.” and others who feel that he should resign because, at best, the controversy has irreparably undermined his credibility or, at worst, because they believe that he is guilty.

“The longer this goes on, the coalition-building necessary on central issues might be not only difficult, as it is now, but close to impossible,” Hedgecock said. “Unfortunately, because of the limbo I’m in, I really can’t take part in trying to pull people back together. That’s maybe the hardest thing for me to take.”

Hedgecock insisted that his adamant resistance to calls for his resignation stems from “the guiding principle . . . of what is good for the city, not just personal reasons.”

“No one is indispensable, and that certainly includes me,” Hedgecock said. “If I felt that it was hurting the city more to go on with this than to fight for the principles involved, I’d resign. But I feel just the opposite now.

“I feel that the principles involved are so crucial that I’ve got to fight for them. The issue is, are the people going to elect the mayor, or are the district attorney and the San Diego Union going to do it? What we’re seeing is a shocking abuse of prosecutorial powers. From El Salvador to Poland, these are the kinds of things that occur if you’re not politically in the favor of the state prosecutor. But that shouldn’t happen in this country or in this city. That’s what I think this case stands for.”

Calling his trial “more of a political case than a criminal one,” Hedgecock said it was difficult to admit to himself that the best he can probably hope for in a retrial is another hung jury, not outright acquittal. However, the mayor argued that the likelihood that he will never be able to completely clear his name has more to do with the “political and social polarization” engulfing the case than his own innocence or guilt.

“If we tried this case in San Francisco or Omaha or someplace where the name Dominelli didn’t conjure up what it does for San Diegans, I think I could be acquitted,” Hedgecock said. “But given the backdrop of the whole Dominelli and J. David fiasco, that doesn’t seem possible here.” Hedgecock reiterated, however, that he does not intend to seek a change of venue, calling that legal right “a political impossibility.”

“As mayor, how can I say that I can’t get a fair trial in my own city?” Hedgecock asked. “That may be the reality, but politically, you can’t do it.”

Whatever the ultimate outcome of Hedgecock’s case, the mayor said that he believes that the controversy illustrates the public’s schizophrenic attitude toward politicians.

“I’m up against the old way Americans feel about politicians,” Hedgecock said. “On the one hand, they have the idealism that politicians are perfect George Washington-like or Abraham Lincoln-like creatures. But on the other hand, they also think that politicians are swindling and screwing up and cheating.”

Where does Hedgecock place himself on that scale?

“Somewhere in the middle, on the good half, I hope, just doing the best that I can,” he replied, laughing. “And how I respond to this challenge is a reflection on that.

“I look at this as a test of me as a person and gauge or grade myself on how well I meet the test. It’s been a wrenching experience that I would have been glad to avoid. But I know that if I survive this, I can survive anything.”