D.A. opens inquiry on Alatorre

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley has opened an inquiry into the lobbying work of former Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre and whether he violated city laws by failing to disclose those activities, several sources said.

Cooley’s Public Integrity Division, joined by investigators with the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, also have been seeking information about any lobbying work by former city commissioner Leland Wong, who was sentenced last month to five years in prison.

Both Alatorre and Wong have been influential figures in city politics and, in separate cases, have faced lengthy corruption probes. Alatorre pleaded guilty to tax charges in 2001 after a four-year federal investigation; Wong was convicted last summer on charges that dealt, in part, on contracting at the airport and harbor.

The inquiry comes one year after The Times reported that Alatorre had contacted at least seven city departments and five council members on behalf of various businesses without registering as a lobbyist. Two weeks after the article appeared, Alatorre filed his registration forms.

District attorney spokeswoman Jane Robison confirmed that an inquiry of Alatorre’s lobbying activity is underway but had no comment on Wong. However, three high-level officials at Los Angeles World Airports said last week that they had been informed of an ethics investigation focusing on both Alatorre and Wong.

LAWA general manager Gina Marie Lindsey said she received an e-mail from her agency’s lawyers asking if she had been contacted by either man regarding airport business. “I haven’t spoken to either one of those folks, so I didn’t spend any time thinking about it,” she said.

Two other airport officials said they were informed that Ethics Commission investigators want to interview anyone who has been lobbied by Alatorre and Wong. An e-mail sent earlier this month by Deputy City Atty. Kelly Martin said the Ethics Commission and the district attorney’s office are conducting a comprehensive investigation -- one that is not limited to any particular time frame.

“Please note that although the Ethics Commission’s staff member stated that they are not investigating LAWA, only whether Mr. Wong or Mr. Alatorre should have been registered as lobbyists, if the Ethics Commission or the district attorney finds evidence of other wrongdoing, they may be compelled to investigate it,” Martin wrote to airport officials.

Alatorre did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives of the Ethics Commission and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo would not discuss the matter.

City laws require lobbyists to tell the Ethics Commission every three months who their clients are, how much they have been paid by that client and what decisions they are seeking to influence. Such information is particularly important when the lobbying is performed by former elected officials, who have much greater access to city decision-makers than the public, said Robert Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based advocacy group Center for Governmental Studies.

“We want to know who is being paid to influence City Hall,” Stern said. “With Alatorre, it’s even more important because he’s a former councilman and obviously has a lot more contacts.”

Violations of the city’s lobbying laws can be prosecuted as criminal misdemeanors. Such cases are difficult, however, because they have a statute of limitations of one year. If the city seeks only administrative penalties -- such as fines or a one-year ban on lobbying -- there is a four-year statute of limitations.

Wong’s attorney, Jonathan Milberg, said he is unaware of any new investigation of his client and had only been retained in the last week to file an appeal of his conviction. Wong was found guilty of 14 felony counts, including bribery, conflict of interest, perjury and embezzlement while serving on commissions overseeing the airport and Department of Water and Power.

Alatorre served on the council from 1985 to 1999, representing such neighborhoods as Boyle Heights, Eagle Rock and El Sereno. When he left office, federal authorities were pursuing allegations that he had accepted $42,000 in gifts from entities seeking to influence decisions before the council and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he served on a 13-member board.

Alatorre pleaded guilty to income tax evasion in 2001 for accepting those payments in 1996. A federal judge sentenced him to home detention but said a fine was inappropriate because the former councilman lacked the ability to pay it.

Since then, Alatorre has resurfaced as an informal advisor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and a consultant with a lucrative lobbying practice. Ethics Commission forms show that he reported receiving $207,000 from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 for his City Hall lobbying work and $12,000 during the same period as a consultant to the city’s housing authority.

Ethics Commission reports show that Alatorre has been working as a subcontractor to lobbyist and former Assemblyman Mike Roos, representing such clients as the Las Lomas Land Co., which had hoped to build 5,553 homes north of Sylmar, and URS, a company that has received airport contracts.

Alatorre also represents Advanced Development and Investment, a company that hopes to build a 26-unit affordable housing project on Temple Street in Historic Filipinotown. On Wednesday, the council voted to provide an additional $718,552 to help the developer close a “financing gap” on the project.

The council took a similar action Nov. 7 on a 49-unit project planned by Advanced Development and Investment in South Los Angeles. Although the project had already received $5.5 million in city money, the council voted to provide an additional $1.4 million to help it eliminate a shortfall.

Alatorre registered as a lobbyist Oct. 30, 2007. But some city officials reported that they had been lobbied by him several months earlier.

Airport commissioner Valeria Velasco filled out paperwork showing that she had been contacted by Alatorre regarding taxicabs at Los Angeles International Airport on April 2, 2007.

Harbor Commission President S. David Freeman reported that he spoken to Alatorre on Jan. 15, 2007, and March 12, 2007, about a plan to reduce truck emissions at the Port of Los Angeles, the Department of Water and Power -- an agency Freeman once led -- and a project planned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

Last year, Jon Kirk Mukri told The Times he had been contacted at least six times over 1 1/2 years by Alatorre regarding a golf concession contract and a charter school that wanted to operate on parkland.

Freeman said he had not been contacted by investigators and was unaware of an investigation of Alatorre.

Mukri said he too had not heard from any investigative agencies.

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david.zahniser@latimes.com