Dismiss Fiedler Case, Reiner Urges : D.A. Cites Lack of Evidence, but He Will Pursue Indictment Against Aide

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner announced Wednesday that his office will recommend dismissal of an indictment against Rep. Bobbi Fiedler for allegedly offering a $100,000 campaign contribution to lure state Sen. Ed Davis out of the Republican U.S. Senate primary.

“We have made a professional assessment of the evidence, and we have determined that the evidence is not sufficient to (prosecute) Bobbi Fiedler,” Reiner declared at an hourlong press conference.

Reiner added that despite the office’s turnabout on Fiedler, prosecutors will still seek to pursue the case against Fiedler’s fiance and top aide, Paul Clarke. Both were charged with violating the same state Election Code section, which makes it illegal to pay or offer to pay a candidate to secure his withdrawal from an election.

Fiedler, in a telephone interview from her Washington office, said, “I am perplexed that they are continuing to go forward with this at all. I don’t understand why they feel it is necessary to waste taxpayers’ money on a case in which two people have done nothing wrong.”

Reiner’s decision appeared to directly contradict statements made by his top aides during the last three weeks while the district attorney vacationed in Europe and was unavailable for public comment.

As recently as Tuesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven A. Sowders, assigned to prosecute the high-profile case, said he was preparing arguments to rebut the defense’s motion to dismiss the case against Fiedler.

Moreover, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert Garcetti, acting in Reiner’s stead during his boss’s absence, had insisted that “if the evidence established her (Fiedler’s) innocence, we could not and would not go forward. That is not our conclusion.”

Reiner, at his press conference, declared that his decision was in keeping with his office’s initial recommendations to the Los Angeles County Grand Jury that it indict Clarke but not Fiedler. The panel indicted Fiedler anyway.

Reiner said that before he left on vacation last month, he ordered his staff to attempt to gather additional evidence on Fiedler to determine whether to proceed against her. After a series of meetings following his return to work Tuesday, Reiner said, he concluded that there was no additional evidence to strengthen the case against her.

To Reiterate Argument

As a result, he said, “we will make the same argument before the Superior Court that we made before the grand jury.”

“Our recommendation will be that we will not oppose the motion to dismiss,” Reiner said. He added later: “We will recommend that the indictment be dismissed.”

A pretrial hearing for both defendants that had been scheduled Friday before Superior Court Judge Robert T. Altman was postponed until next Wednesday. Although Altman could reject the dismissal motion at that time, several attorneys involved in the case said judges generally dismiss cases when both sides recommend doing so for lack of sufficient evidence.

Fiedler’s co-counsel, Harland Braun, called Reiner’s decision “a mixed kind of blessing . . . because they (Fiedler and Clarke) are both totally innocent.

“I don’t understand why the district attorney didn’t just review all this and let it die a natural death, which is what it deserved.”

If Reiner “had any guts,” Braun added, “he’d come into court and dismiss the case against both of them.”

John Yzurdiaga, Clarke’s co-counsel, said, “I’m partially pleased. . . . But I think they should dismiss (the charges) against both of them.”

Fiedler, 48, and Clarke, 39, were indicted by the grand jury Jan. 23--four days before Reiner left town. The panel’s action followed a two-month investigation in which Davis’ campaign manager, Martha Zilm, made a series of secret tape recordings of telephone conversations and meetings with Fiedler staffers, including the defendants, at the direction of the district attorney’s office.

The prosecution’s probe was launched after the Davis camp reported to the district attorney’s office that a mid-level Fiedler supporter had made overtures to a mid-level Davis supporter about a possible campaign contribution to retire Davis’ campaign debt if Davis quit the race. No further contact took place between the two camps until about two weeks later when Zilm contacted the Fiedler camp through the Davis supporter, George Moss.

Reiner, at his news conference, defended the methods of the investigation, saying the allegation was “substantial . . . (and) could not be ignored.”

“There was significant evidence to indicate that she (Fiedler) was involved in this, which is why she was part of that investigation and which is why it went to the grand jury,” he said. However, he stressed, that evidence was not enough to warrant a trial.

He added that the case against Clarke remains strong and that Clarke was not entrapped by Zilm.

“No reasonable person can listen to that tape and hear . . . Paul Clarke talking a blue streak for two hours and then say Paul Clarke was talked into anything,” Reiner said.

Garcetti said Wednesday he did not feel he had been overruled on Fiedler.

“Between a grand jury indictment and a trial, there is invariably additional investigation and constant evaluation,” the No. 2 man in the office said. “It was indeed our intention to go forward with the case, but then we all got together yesterday and discussed the evidence. The evidence did not warrant prosecution.”

He said that although the office’s additional investigation of the Fiedler case had been completed last Wednesday, he did not telephone Reiner in Europe to tell him that the evidence against the congresswoman was weak.

“In my judgment a phone call wasn’t warranted,” Garcetti said. “He hadn’t had the opportunity to read the grand jury transcript.”

Davis, in a telephone interview Wednesday, said he was not surprised by Reiner’s decision, since Reiner’s office had recommended against indicting the Northridge congresswoman.

“It’s pretty obvious when the prosecutor does not want to go forward with the case, that the case is not going to go anywhere,” the Valencia senator said.

But Davis believes that voters will still have doubts about Fiedler because of her closeness to Clarke.

“It would be extremely difficult to think that Clarke operated in a vacuum, given their close relationship,” Davis said.

Reiner refused to speculate on the possible damage that the indictment of Fiedler has inflicted on her Senate campaign. He also said he would not have done anything differently had he been in town during the last three weeks and said his aides did not oppose Reiner’s decision.

Reiner acknowledged that it was a “mistake” for Richard Ferraro, a political rival of Fiedler’s when the two were members of the Los Angeles school board in the late 1970s, to serve on the grand jury that indicted her.

Reiner said Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz, who supervises the grand jury, decided not to remove Ferraro from the panel because Ferraro said he did not think his relationship with Fiedler “would affect his decision whatsoever.”

But because of the appearance of a conflict, Reiner said, Ferraro “should have removed himself.”

Defense counsel Braun said the district attorney’s office should share the blame for Ferraro’s presence on the panel.

“It’s so obvious Richard Ferraro is prejudiced against Bobbi Fiedler. . . . It’s silly to accept someone’s word.”

Ferraro, reached by telephone, declined to comment.

Times Political Writer Keith Love contributed to this story.