Snyder Unaware of Any Illegality, His Lawyer Says

As former Los Angeles City Councilman Arthur K. Snyder prepared to surrender to face charges of conspiring to violate campaign law, his lawyer said Friday that part of his defense will be that he was unaware of allegedly illegal activities involving his relatives.

Most of the allegedly improper campaign contributions underlying a felony indictment disclosed by The Times Friday appear to involve relatives and friends of either Snyder’s wife, Delia Wu Snyder, or her brother-in-law, William Wang, records and interviews show.

But attorney Mark Geragos said that Snyder, a City Hall fixture for three decades as a lawmaker and lobbyist, was in the dark about any possible illegal actions by his relatives and business associates.

“Obviously, the defense is he didn’t know anything about it. And, absolutely, all those things will come into play (including) that he was on the cusp of (his wife’s) family,” Geragos said.

Snyder, his wife, Wang and Snyder’s law partner, Gil Archuletta, were among those charged in sealed indictments, sources familiar with the case said.

The prosecution’s case appears linked in large part to allegedly illegal contributions made to state and local candidates via Evergreen America Corp., which paid a record $895,000 civil penalty last year. Wang managed the company locally at the time, and in the settlement Delia Snyder was identified as a “middleman” for thousands of dollars in contributions.

A pivotal question in the conspiracy case, which Geragos and other sources say appears to be targeted mainly at Snyder, is whether the former Eastside lawmaker directed or had knowledge of alleged illegal activity going on around him.

Snyder, 62, has vehemently denied knowledge of improper contributions, in part portraying himself as being at the outer edge of a network of immigrant relatives who apparently became entangled in something they failed to understand.

“They are a very close group of people,” Snyder told The Times in an interview 17 months ago, one of several over the three-year course of state and local investigations that led to the indictments. “(To) those of us who are on the edge of it, who are not Chinese, there are currents within currents in that community . . . money moving back and forth” between relatives and friends.

“They got drawn into something they maybe shouldn’t have, apparently to some degree.”

Sources closely tracking the case scoffed at Snyder’s contention that he knew nothing of the alleged improprieties occurring in his office and family. Investigators have used search warrants and grand jury subpoenas to gather voluminous information. But details of their case have not yet emerged.

Still, sources say, prosecutors are likely to use the alleged involvement of Snyder’s associates and relatives--particularly his wife--to bolster their case against him.

Geragos said Delia Snyder, who once was an aide to Snyder at City Hall and later worked in his law office, could be a key witness.

But her role in any prosecution remains unclear. She is out of the country on an extended stay in her homeland of Taiwan and is not represented by an attorney.

In an interview this week, Snyder said he did not know if or when his wife might return. “Can you think of any good reason why she should?” he said, claiming that members of her family have been harassed by investigators--which officials deny.

Delia Snyder has been unavailable, and Wang’s attorney, Robert Corbin, says his client violated no laws. Archuletta’s attorney, Brian O’Neill, said his client settled a civil case and is improperly facing a second penalty.