Hedgecock Conspiracy Case Returns to the Courtroom

Testimony is to resume today in the second trial of Mayor Roger Hedgecock on 15 felony conspiracy and perjury charges. His first trial ended in a mistrial last February with the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of conviction.

His second trial began last week with prosecutors telling jurors that Hedgecock had participated in a conspiracy in which a close friend’s political consulting firm “served as the . . . middleman” for illegal contributions to his successful 1983 mayoral campaign.

Hedgecock’s attorney, Oscar Goodman, dismissed Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Wickersham’s opening statement as “a road map . . . filled with mines” and told the jury that although Hedgecock and his inner circle of campaign aides committed “honest mistakes,” they “were doing everything they could to comply” with election and financial disclosure laws.

Only two witnesses testified last week before Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr. recessed the case in midweek to allow Wickersham to recover from medical treatment for hemorrhoids.

A 39-year-old moderate Republican who was overwhelmingly reelected last November only seven weeks after his indictment, Hedgecock faces possible expulsion from office if he is convicted of any of the 15 felony charges. He also faces a single misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge.

The charges stem from allegations that Hedgecock conspired with former principals of the bankrupt La Jolla investment firm of J. David & Co. to funnel about $267,000 in illegal donations to his 1983 campaign through a political consulting firm owned by Tom Shepard, a close friend.

Prosecutors also allege that Hedgecock intentionally falsified financial disclosure statements to conceal those campaign transactions and personal financial aid--used primarily to remodel his house--from former J. David executives J. David (Jerry) Dominelli and Nancy Hoover. Shepard, Hoover and Dominelli face similar charges and are to be tried separately later.

Hedgecock has denied knowledge of any illegal campaign contributions, portraying the $267,000 as a routine business investment in Shepard’s firm by Hoover and Dominelli. The errors and omissions on his financial reports, Hedgecock contends, were inadvertent ones later corrected through amendments cited by Goodman as evidence of the mayor’s good faith.

The two attorneys’ opening arguments were similar to those delivered in the first trial. Wickersham told the jurors--selected over an unusually long nine-day process--that Hedgecock and his supporters began plotting a possible mayoral campaign shortly after he had been reelected as a San Diego County supervisor in June, 1980.

Shepard, who at the time served on Hedgecock’s supervisorial staff, left the county payroll in early 1982 to start a consulting business--a firm formed primarily, Wickersham argued, so that Hedgecock would be “ready to go” in the event that then-Mayor Pete Wilson was elected or appointed to higher office. Wilson was elected to the U.S. Senate in November, 1982, and Hedgecock won a special race in May, 1983, to serve the remaining 18 months of Wilson’s unexpired term.

Goodman labeled Wickersham’s theory of the case “an absurdity” arising out of the prosecution’s attempt to “look backward . . . and try to put together a jigsaw puzzle” by seeking to link isolated events into a conspiratorial plot to circumvent the city’s $250-per-person contribution limit.

“There was no secret or illicit (agreement) between Roger Hedgecock and anyone,” Goodman said.

The controversy over Hedgecock’s finances has dominated local political news since early 1984, but there were signs last week that, despite the trial’s high stakes, public interest has waned since the first trial.