D.A. Asked to Probe Alatorre Use of Funds

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office Wednesday asked the county district attorney’s office to investigate whether Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre violated the city’s campaign contribution law by using his state campaign funds to help finance his City Council race.

The referral to the district attorney’s office means the city attorney’s office has decided that questions raised about Alatorre’s use of funds in his campaign for the Eastside council seat last year “warranted further investigation,” said Mike Qualls, spokesman for City Attorney James K. Hahn. However, the city attorney “made no determination on the merits, whether anything was done right or wrong,” Qualls added.

The city attorney asked the district attorney’s office to take over the investigation “to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest,” Qualls said. Under the City Charter, the city attorney is the legal counsel to the City Council “and works closely with (its members) on a daily basis,” he added. “This way we avoid the perception of conflict.”

The district attorney was asked to look at $45,000 in state funds that allegedly were used to finance Alatorre’s campaign for the Eastside’s City Council seat last fall. In addition, sources said, another $40,000 spent by his state political committee for uses that may have benefited Alatorre’s city campaign will be reviewed.

Provisions of the city campaign-contribution law passed by voters last year prohibit a council candidate from using outside sources, such as a state committee, to finance a city race.

Effect of Violation

Violation of the law is a misdemeanor and occurs if a person “knowingly and willfully” breaks the law. Conviction by a court could lead to removal from office or make a person ineligible for office for five years. The law was designed in part to lessen the fund-raising advantages of incumbents who could, before the law was passed, stockpile large sums of money for use in future city races to use against under-funded challengers.

In a further check Wednesday of Alatorre’s campaign contribution statements filed with the city clerk, other questions were raised. State law requires that a candidate for office file campaign contribution statements, listing sources of contributions and payments dispersed. Alatorre’s statements covering the period in which he ran for council last fall did not list a salary for his press secretary, Tom Sullivan.

Sullivan, a former press aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, said he was a paid consultant for the Cordoba Corp., a consulting agency headed by Alatorre friend George Pla. Sullivan said he has been paid $6,000 by Pla so far, but neither Pla nor the Cordoba corporation are listed as donors or “in-kind” contributors to Alatorre.

‘Volunteered’ Time

Sullivan said he “volunteered” his time working for Alatorre, and that his major job was to perform other types of consulting for Pla, jobs he said he still has not finished. But Pla and Sullivan early in the campaign said that Sullivan had been “brought aboard” specifically to handle press for the Alatorre campaign. (Sullivan is currently part of Alatorre’s city-paid interim staff and a Cordoba consultant).

“Tom was and is a consultant to me, I couldn’t control what he did in his spare time,” Pla said. “If anything, Tom Sullivan should have been listed as donating his own professional services to the campaign.”

The city campaign reports also indicate that several state employees from Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s Office of Majority Services, the political arm of the Speaker’s office, came from Sacramento to Los Angeles to work on Alatorre’s campaign. Sullivan said they also volunteered their time “on weekends.”

A spot check of one item on a campaign report indicated that Crocker Center downtown donated rental space to Alatorre for a Nov. 2 fund-raiser. But Margaret Fleming, marketing manager for Crocker Center, said her accounting office had billed Alatorre’s city campaign committee, as is the usual practice. As of Wednesday, Fleming said, the bill had not been paid.

‘Chances for Errors’

Sullivan, speaking for Alatorre, said several people were involved in putting together the campaign contribution report “and anytime any kind of system is diffused the chances for errors increase.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Jorgensen of the Special Investigations Division said the information from the city attorney’s office “will be reviewed carefully to see if there are violations of the city law or state law.”

His office “hope(s) to know what to do with it” by sometime next week, Jorgensen said. If the district attorney determines that there has been a violation of the law, Jorgensen said, the office has the option of taking action or recommending it for action by the state attorney general’s office.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner endorsed Alatorre in the recent City Council race and Alatorre endorsed Reiner in 1984 when Reiner had a tough fight against Republican opponent Robert Philibosian. State Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp also endorsed Alatorre in the council race, and Van de Kamp’s wife, Andrea, and Alatorre’s wife, Sharrell, are friends.

Sullivan said Alatorre “welcomes” the review by the district attorney’s office in hopes of “seeing the matter resolved as quickly as possible.”