Mayor Resumes Pleas for Legal Defense Fund

Conceding that his “hands are temporarily tied” by a city attorney’s ruling limiting donations to his legal defense fund, Mayor Roger Hedgecock said Thursday that his supporters have begun soliciting contributions that comply with the city’s $250-per-person campaign limit.

In a related development Thursday, Hedgecock’s criminal attorney, Michael Pancer, told Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Kremer that he plans to file documents today asking to be relieved from the mayor’s felony conspiracy and perjury case because of schedule conflicts and Hedgecock’s limited ability to pay for legal representation.

Hedgecock, who last week sued the city in an attempt to have the $250 limit lifted, described the scaled-back fund-raising effort to help defray his legal expenses as “the best we can do under the circumstances,” pending a court’s decision on his lawsuit.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to raise enough money within the $250 limit to hire a lawyer,” said Hedgecock, who originally hoped to solicit defense fund contributions of $1,000 or more. “But this is about all we can do for now.”

The fund-raising letters were mailed this week to people who contributed to his past political campaigns, Hedgecock explained. The mayor’s defense fund was organized by his chief campaign fund-raiser, Nancy MacHutchin, who suspended an earlier fund-raising drive because of the questions about its legality.

Hedgecock’s disclosure of the renewed effort to raise money to help pay for his defense came as Pancer reiterated his previously stated desire to be removed from the case. Pancer represented the mayor in a seven-week trial that ended in a mistrial last month with the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction.

During a court session Thursday, at which a hearing on the mayor’s retrial scheduled for today was postponed, Pancer told Kremer, “I do not consider myself Mr. Hedgecock’s attorney for the retrial.” Pancer said that his commitments to other clients, as well as the uncertainties surrounding Hedgecock’s ability to pay for legal representation, have raised doubts about whether he will handle the retrial.

The postponed hearing, rescheduled for Wednesday, is a so-called readiness conference, at which a judge seeks to help both sides avoid a trial through plea bargaining--a possibility that Hedgecock describes as “inconceivable.”

“There’s such an apparent and wide difference of opinion that I can’t envision that (plea bargaining) happening,” Hedgecock said. “We haven’t made an offer and the other side hasn’t, and I doubt there’s going to be any movement on either side.”

Last week, Superior Court Judge James A. Malkus set May 8 as the date for Hedgecock’s retrial, despite Pancer’s complaints that it would be “physically impossible” for him to handle the trial in May because of his work on other cases. Because any new lawyer selected by Hedgecock would need months to prepare for the case, prosecutors have said that they doubt that the retrial will begin until fall.

Prosecutors have charged that Hedgecock conspired with former J. David & Co. principals Nancy Hoover and J. David (Jerry) Dominelli in a scheme to funnel tens of thousands of dollars in allegedly illegal contributions to his 1983 campaign via a political consulting firm owned by Tom Shepard, a close friend of the mayor. Hedgecock contends that Hoover’s and Dominelli’s investments in Tom Shepard & Associates were “routine business deals” designed primarily to help Shepard start his own business, not to get Hedgecock elected mayor.

Despite his intention to ask to be removed from the case at a March 25 hearing, Pancer has emphasized that he would be willing to continue to serve as Hedgecock’s criminal attorney, provided that the retrial does not start until this fall and that the mayor finds a way to pay for his services.

Hedgecock said Thursday, however, that he is “totally open-minded” about whether Pancer or someone else will handle his retrial.

“I’ve looked around and talked to a lot of lawyers here and elsewhere,” Hedgecock said. “In effect, I’m trying to shop around and see what kind of talent is available at what price. Mike Pancer is not only aware that I’m doing that, he’s helping me do it.”

His search for an attorney has been seriously hampered, Hedgecock argued, by City Atty. John W. Witt’s ruling last month that money that the mayor raises for his defense is subject to the city’s $250-per-person political contribution limit.

In a lawsuit aimed at overturning Witt’s ruling, Hedgecock argues that the $250 limit applies only to elections, not to defense funds for public officeholders. Hedgecock also contends in the lawsuit--which names the city, Witt and Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller Jr. as defendants--that Witt’s interpretation of the local election law undermines his constitutional rights by preventing him from hiring an attorney of his choice.

“I can talk to all the attorneys I want, but until I get some money, I can’t make a commitment to anyone,” said Hedgecock, who sold a house in Pacific Beach to help pay for his legal expenses in the first trial. “Until we hear from a court on this, I’m in a tough spot. For now, we have to try to live with (Witt’s ruling).”

Hedgecock said that his civil attorney, Leo Sullivan, has sent letters to Witt and Miller seeking their cooperation in expediting a court hearing on the lawsuit. However, neither Witt nor Miller has yet replied, the mayor added.

The Wednesday hearing is only one of two scheduled for next week in the mayor’s trial. On Thursday, Hedgecock faces a preliminary hearing on two felony perjury counts and a misdemeanor conflict of interest charge not at issue in his first trial. When the mayor is later arraigned in Superior Court on those charges, prosecutors plan to ask that the additional counts be tried at the same time as the retrial on the 13 felony counts involved in the first trial.