Corruption in District of Columbia Called Widespread

As the former deputy mayor of the District of Columbia was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison and fined $127,000 for stealing city funds and obstructing justice, U.S. Atty. Joseph E. diGenova charged that the “utterly raw” corruption involved “is not an isolated case” in the city.

“This case is a microcosm of very, very serious problems involving the awarding of contracts in the city,” diGenova told a news conference after the sentencing of Ivanhoe Donaldson, who also had served as a top political adviser to Mayor Marion Barry.

The city government of the nation’s capital suffers from “a pervasive attitude” that effective controls to spending “are an affront to (the city’s) managers, who have a lot to do,” diGenova said.

Moreover, he said, the Donaldson case had revealed “an incredible lack of willingness” on the part of local government employees “to do anything about something that was patently illegal.”

DiGenova and the prosecutors who handled the case emphasized that it was developed by the FBI, prosecutors and a federal grand jury--not by the District of Columbia’s internal watchdog mechanism.

Series of Prosecutions

Donaldson’s case is the latest in a series of corruption prosecutions involving the district government and at least nine more are under investigation, prosecutors said.

After a 17-month investigation by a federal grand jury, Donaldson pleaded guilty Dec. 10 to charges of stealing about $190,000, primarily from the city but also from Barry’s reelection campaign funds, and to obstructing federal investigations of his scheme.

Donaldson served as deputy mayor for economic development and director of the city’s Department of Employment Services before leaving government to become a vice president of E.F. Hutton & Co., a job he resigned last September.

Robert Watkins, Donaldson’s attorney, tried to underscore his client’s “selfless service to others” in the civil rights movement during the 1960s and his work in support of leading black politicians in asking that he be sentenced to perform “substantial community service.”

But U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell interrupted when Watkins described Donaldson’s crime as “an economic offense,” saying: “That’s not this case.”

Obstructing Justice

Gesell noted that Donaldson had pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and that he had attempted to pressure co-workers and subordinates to “lie and cheat and obstruct justice” so that his crimes could not be proved.

Referring to letters on Donaldson’s behalf that he had received from noted civil rights figures, Gesell said: “Many who have written me do not appear to recognize that that is the heart of this offense.”

Daniel J. Bernstein, one of the assistant U.S. attorneys who led the investigation, said Donaldson’s crimes had been uncovered through “a fluke.” A sexual molestation case by a contractor for a city agency led to a fraud investigation of the contractor and two officials of the Department of Employment Services. Heavy sentences imposed by the judge in that case led one of the officials to cooperate with investigators, which resulted in the discovery of a special administrative fund that Donaldson had tapped for his fraud schemes.

While diGenova refused to discuss additional corruption allegations under investigation, other sources said that they go beyond those city officials who failed to blow the whistle on Donaldson’s violations.

Donaldson’s guilty plea followed earlier scandals involving a housing project that had been the showpiece of Barry’s housing program; the convictions of the Department of Employment Services’ officials, and a cocaine case against a woman employee of the District of Columbia whom Barry acknowledged visiting at her apartment.