El Cajon

An Alpine woman testified Thursday that her attorney asked her to pay $1,000 to him so he could bribe a prosecutor so she would receive a lighter sentence in her drunk driving case.

The testimony came in the preliminary hearing of El Cajon attorney Michael Bruce, 45, who is charged with attempted grand theft from his client, Carol Williams.

“He told me he needed $1,000 to give to the district attorney . . . If I didn’t get it, I was probably going to jail,” said Williams.

“I was pretty confused and upset about the whole thing. I didn’t know what to believe. He said I had a short time to get it--about 10 days.”

Williams told San Diego Municipal Court Judge H. Ronald Domnitz that Bruce told her that, in return for the bribe, the prosecutor would not ask that she be sent to jail.

District attorney’s investigator Richard Frame testified that he put a wiretap on phones Williams used in talking to Bruce while investigating the charge.

Frame said at first that Rupert Linley, the prosecutor in Williams’ drunk driving case, was the “focus of attention,” but he later concluded there was no bribe to Linley. He said Linley told him Bruce never talked to him about Williams’ sentence.

Because of the potential conflict of interest in the district attorney’s office, the state attorney general’s office is prosecuting the case.

If convicted, Bruce could lose his license to practice law and could receive a short prison term. He remains free on his own recognizance. He has denied the charge.

Bruce once ran for a judgeship in El Cajon Municipal Court.