Hahn’s Legal Bills on the Rise

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, whose administration has been dogged by criminal investigations into possible links between campaign donors and city contracts, is running up growing legal bills.

Campaign finance reports filed with the city Ethics Commission indicate that the mayor created a legal defense fund in November to handle “responses to continuing investigations.”

In just six weeks between Nov. 18 and Dec. 31, the fund paid $18,500 to one of the city’s premier legal firms, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, which has provided counsel to Hahn’s campaigns for years.

Hahn advisor Bill Wardlaw, who oversees the mayor’s fundraising, declined to say what kind of legal work the firm is doing for the mayor.

But Wardlaw said he knew of no current probe into the mayor’s reelection campaign.

Several Hahn supporters, however, are under investigation for allegedly orchestrating illegal contributions to his 2001 mayoral campaign.

The district attorney has charged attorney Pierce O’Donnell with 26 misdemeanors for allegedly asking associates to donate $25,500 to Hahn’s campaign and then reimbursing them. The city’s Ethics Commission and the state Fair Political Practices Commission are also investigating the alleged money laundering.

And city ethics officials have accused Mark Alan Abrams, a Westside developer and major Hahn fundraiser, with laundering $18,000 in donations to Hahn’s last mayoral campaign. The district attorney has also opened an inquiry into those donations.

In addition, federal and local prosecutors have subpoenaed thousands of pages of contract documents from the airports, harbor and water and power departments amid questions about whether campaign contributions influenced the awarding of city contracts.

The U.S. attorney’s office also subpoenaed the mayor’s e-mail and e-mail from several of his top aides, including former fundraiser Troy Edwards. Edwards was the mayor’s chief liaison to the airports, harbor and water and power departments. Edwards resigned last spring, as the district attorney and federal prosecutor stepped up their investigations.

The mayor has maintained that he is aware of no wrongdoing by anyone in his administration.

Wardlaw said Thursday that the new legal defense fund, which raised $11,000 in the last six weeks of 2004, would also help the mayor respond to any future inquiries into his campaign.

The city’s Ethics Commission routinely audits the campaign finance statements of all local campaign committees after elections.

In 2003, the mayor created a legal defense fund to pay for work related to this standard post-election audit. That fund took in $15,750 through the end of last year, according to campaign finance statements, and paid Manatt, Phelps & Phillips more than $7,500.

In September 2003, Hahn agreed to pay $53,522 in fines for 64 violations of campaign restrictions stemming from his 2001 election, including accepting excessive contributions and failing to provide copies of mailers and telephone solicitation transcripts to the Ethics Commission.

Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this report.