Long Beach City Official Indicted in Moriarty Case

Long Beach City Councilman James Wilson was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges of taking $53,500 from public corruption figure W. Patrick Moriarty in exchange for political support of Moriarty’s fireworks company.

Wilson, a Long Beach city councilman for 14 years, was accused of taking the money over a five-year period beginning in September, 1978, a year before he led an unsuccessful effort to legalize “safe and sane” fireworks in Long Beach.

The grand jury indictment, charging Wilson with 26 counts of mail fraud, said he was paid most of the money in monthly checks of $500 and $1,500 through an Orange County company, Financial Loan Consultants, in which Moriarty maintained a half ownership.

The indictment charged Wilson with scheming “to defraud the City of Long Beach and its citizens of their right” to have their municipal affairs conducted honestly. It also accused him of hiding the Moriarty payments in annual financial reports to the California Fair Political Practices Commission from 1981 through 1984.

Wilson also was charged in the indictment with using his political office to influence members of the Legislature to vote in 1982 for a bill aimed at stripping cities and counties of the power to ban “safe and sane” (non-explosive) fireworks.

The bill was passed by both houses of the Legislature but was vetoed by then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Wilson, who is scheduled to be formally arraigned Feb. 3 in Los Angeles federal court, could not be reached for comment Thursday, but a member of his staff read a statement from him that said, “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Wilson was on the company’s payroll for $500 a month for 33 months from September, 1978, to May, 1981, according to the indictment. The grand jury charged that Moriarty agreed to increase the company’s payments to Wilson to $1,500 monthly for an additional 20-month period from June, 1981, to January, 1983.

In addition, Moriarty allegedly paid Wilson an extra $2,500 through another company, Pleasanton Properties, on Nov. 18, 1981, and directly paid him another $4,500 on March 1, 1983.

Wilson, 57, led a move to open the City of Long Beach to the sale and use of “safe and sane” fireworks in 1979, but the effort fell one vote short of approval in the Long Beach City Council. In 1981, he again tried unsuccessfully to topple the city’s ban on such fireworks.

During that period, the indictment noted, Moriarty was owner of Red Devil Fireworks Co., a branch of his Anaheim-based Pyrotronics Corp., which manufactured fireworks for sale to the public.

The indictment of Wilson was part of a continuing public corruption investigation into Moriarty’s activities by the U.S. attorney’s office, the Orange County district attorney’s office, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service.

Tenth to Be Indicted

Wilson was the tenth defendant and the fourth city councilman to be indicted in connection with the probe. So far, the investigation has produced eight convictions and one acquittal.

Moriarty, 54, has pleaded guilty to seven counts of mail fraud in connection with another corruption scandal in the City of Commerce and other activities in the Legislature, and he has been cooperating with investigators in an effort to win leniency in his own sentencing.

Moriarty’s sentencing, delayed several times because of the investigation, is set for Jan. 31. He faces a maximum possible prison term of 35 years.

Chief Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard E. Drooyan, in charge of the Moriarty probe, had no comment Thursday on the degree of Moriarty’s help in connection with the indictment of Wilson, but Jan Lawrence Handzlik, representing Moriarty, said his client had “cooperated fully in connection with this matter.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers George Frank, Bill Nottingham and Tracy Wood.