Farrell Did File a Report on Mideast Trip, City Clerk Says

Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell, who on Wednesday acknowledged failing to disclose a free trip to the Middle East, said Thursday that he had properly reported the trip.

“The material that I filed was appropriate as required by law,” Farrell said at a press conference Thursday evening.

The Times reported Thursday that Farrell did not fully disclose on his economic interest statement last year a gift of $3,100 in air fares and hotel expenses on a trip to Saudi Arabia that was paid for by the Assn. of Arab-American Graduates.

When asked Wednesday about his apparent failure to report the trip, Farrell called the omission “an oversight” and said his office was reviewing all gifts that the councilman received in 1986 “to make the necessary corrections.”

However, City Clerk Elias Martinez said Thursday that files kept in his third-floor office at City Hall showed that Farrell had listed the Middle East trip as required by state law.

At a press conference, Farrell said of The Times story: “I look at this as another part of what I call media hysteria. . . . It has been conducted against me and my family, and I think that it should stop. I don’t think people of my community . . . are served well by rumor and innuendo.”

Earlier this week, Barbara Greaves, an administrative assistant in the city clerk’s election division, reviewed with a Times reporter Farrell’s annual economic statement on file in the public records section of City Hall. She concluded that the councilman had failed to disclose any gifts for the year 1986.

Martinez said Thursday night that he could not explain how Greaves concluded that Farrell had failed to report the trip.

In addition, Gary Bamberg, a former staffer in Farrell’s office, had said in a telephone interview he believed that he had not included the gifts on the form because he was not required to do so.

Another Farrell aide, press spokeswoman Vicki Pipkin, searched the councilman’s office files Wednesday and said she was unable to find any copy of the required economic statement reporting the gift.