L.A. Ethics Panel Levies $37,000 in Fines

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission levied $37,450 in fines Thursday against City Council members, candidates and their supporters for violating campaign finance laws in elections during the last four years.

The panel also agreed to consider tougher rules for elected officials accepting the use of corporate jets, after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last month flew to Detroit on a jet provided by the mortgage brokerage firm Ameriquest.

The biggest fine levied Thursday was $23,000, against Desert Roofing and two owners for reimbursing six people for political contributions they made to Jack Weiss’ 2001 campaign for City Council and Kathleen Connell’s unsuccessful run for mayor that year.

The firm is one of more than a dozen subcontractors of Casden Properties that have been fined for participating in a political money-laundering scheme to help Weiss and Connell.

The money-laundering “resulted in false and misleading information which deprived the public of timely disclosure of the true source of the contributions,” said a report on the case from the commission staff.

The commission also approved a $4,800 fine against Weiss for failing to properly file with the panel copies of all 32 mass mailers he sent to voters in his hotly contested 2001 election.

In addition, the panel levied a $1,650 fine against Councilman Tom LaBonge and his campaign committee for failing to properly file with the commission three mass mailers and scripts for eight telephone recorded messages and broadcast commercials touting his 2001 candidacy.

The commission also fined Thomas E. Larkin $5,000 for failing to report an independent expenditure for the same amount in the 2001 election. Larkin, an investment manager, paid for production of two radio commercials that urged voters to support LaBonge.

Larkin launched the independent campaign with the Los Angeles Professional Managers Assn. Political Action Committee, which was fined $500 on Thursday by the commission for failing to provide the panel a script for a radio commercial supporting LaBonge.

Also, small fines were levied against two unsuccessful candidates for City Council who failed to file mailers with the panel.

Commissioner Sean Treglia questioned why so many candidates were not filing mailers and ad scripts with the panel, which provides the public a central location for keeping track of campaign material.

Deena Ghaly, the commission’s chief of enforcement, said it was impossible to determine whether the failure to file is part of a strategy to deprive competing candidates of information or it was, as most candidates say, inadvertent.

The commission also agreed Thursday to have its executive director, LeeAnn Pelham, report at a future meeting on the laws regulating how elected officials can accept the use of private jets from corporations doing business in the city.

The report by Pelham will also suggest possible ways to tighten the rules. Commissioner Bill Boyarsky sought the review after The Times reported that Villaraigosa accepted a private jet ride to Detroit on Nov. 1 from Ameriquest at a time when the firm had a lobbyist working to influence the mayor’s office.

Villaraigosa agreed to reimburse Ameriquest $438 each -- the commercial coach fare -- for himself and an aide who traveled with him to the funeral of civil rights veteran Rosa Parks.

Boyarsky, a former editor at The Times, suggested that the reimbursement should at least be the equivalent of a first-class commercial fare and that the city should pay the fare when the trip involves an elected person’s official duties. “I think there is no guidance on this,” Boyarsky said. “We as the voice of ethics here in the city ought to provide that kind of guidance.”