Carson Official Voted for Moriarty Project While in Debt to His Aide

Convicted political fixer W. Patrick Moriarty and an associate of his loaned thousands of dollars to a Carson councilwoman who became a staunch supporter of Moriarty’s plan to construct a multimillion-dollar development on a suspected toxic dump site, The Times has learned.

Councilwoman Vera Robles DeWitt voted in favor of the troubled Moriarty project while her company owed $20,000 to Marshall Riconosciuto, the Moriarty associate who was overseeing it, according to court records and council minutes.

DeWitt also did not report the debt in economic disclosure statements required by state law. She said she did not believe she needed to.

The debt was only one of several personal, political, business and financial entanglements that have existed during the last five years between the councilwoman, Moriarty and Riconosciuto.

They include:

- Moriarty’s concealed financing of political activities promoting DeWitt’s election in 1981 and 1982, according to Moriarty.

- Moriarty associate Riconosciuto’s business dealings with the small manufacturing company owned by Councilwoman DeWitt and her husband, F. Carlos DeWitt, a man Riconosciuto said he tried to hire for a Northern California business venture he was planning.

- The $20,000 debt that the DeWitts’ company, Posse Police Products Inc., owed to Riconosciuto, which grew from an initial $10,000 loan that Riconosciuto said he personally arranged with Moriarty while DeWitt was serving her first term on the Carson council.

- The 12 votes Councilwoman DeWitt cast favorably affecting Moriarty’s project while she was indebted to Riconosciuto, who was Moriarty’s project manager and representative regularly dealing with the council.

DeWitt said she did not see her involvement with Riconosciuto as a conflict of interest. She said she did not know Moriarty had played any role in her 1981 and 1982 campaigns, did not discover until later that the proposed mobile home park was a Moriarty project and did not even meet Moriarty until 1983.

She called the $10,000 loan a “legitimate business loan,” but conceded that it was never repaid.

Riconosciuto said he got no advantage with the city because of his relations with DeWitt. “I didn’t seek an advantage with any council member nor did I feel I needed one,” he said.

Moriarty was sentenced Jan. 31 to seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to seven counts of mail fraud, three stemming from his bribery of officials in the City of Commerce in return for them granting a license for the California Commerce Club. The other counts involved his making illegal contributions to politicians and paying kickbacks to a banker.

Moriarty has been a central figure in what has been described as the biggest political corruption case in California in 30 years. So far, 10 men have been indicted in the ongoing probe, conducted by the U.S. attorney and the Orange County district attorney.

The investigation recently has shifted to politicians in Sacramento and to others in Carson who were associated with Moriarty.

Moriarty first became involved in Carson in January, 1980, when he acquired a dump site adjacent to the San Diego Freeway in central Carson and launched his abortive plan to develop it as a mobile home park. The land is considered one of the city’s largest and potentially most valuable undeveloped properties.

Moriarty sent Richard Raymond Keith, another of his close associates, to Carson to work as project manager. From the outset, friction developed between city officials and Keith, who was later sentenced to four years in federal prison in the Moriarty corruption case.

In late 1980, Moriarty replaced Keith with the soft-spoken, gentlemanly Riconosciuto, who had been a boyhood friend of Moriarty in the state of Washington and had once worked for Moriarty’s mother. Since the mid-1970s he had been working for Moriarty on projects in Maricopa and in the Bay Area town of Hercules.

When he was sent to Carson, Riconosciuto immediately set about making friends and repairing relations with the city.

He also established a business relationship with F. Carlos DeWitt, whose wife, Vera, at the time was making her first bid for a seat on the Carson City Council. Riconosciuto said he was working on an electrical product he hoped to market and he contracted with DeWitt to produce prototypes.

Introduced by Friend

Riconosciuto said he was introduced to the DeWitts by Nita Baird, who was a close friend of Vera DeWitt and a key member of DeWitt’s campaign. At the time, Baird was providing janitorial services at Moriarty’s Carson quarters. She later became romantically involved with Riconosciuto.

To help elect DeWitt in 1981, Moriarty secretly financed a $30,000 campaign, according to public records and copies of the checks, which a Moriarty associate said were backed by Moriarty’s money.

Moriarty denies he financed this campaign.

The money was used primarily to smear DeWitt’s strongest opponent, campaign records and mailings show, while masquerading as a campaign to get out the vote.

DeWitt, who said she was not aware of the smear campaign at the time, won the election by 5 percentage points over her closest opponent. Once in office, DeWitt nominated Baird to the Carson Planning Commission. DeWitt said she was not aware that Baird worked for Moriarty.

As a planning commissioner, Baird did not disclose that she was working for Moriarty in economic disclosure statements required under state law. Baird said she did not know she was supposed to.

Moriarty Partnership

Shortly afterward, Baird got a new job. According to court documents, Baird was hired at about $1,350 a month--and had use of a Cadillac leased by Moriarty’s firm--to do office work for Riconosciuto at Casa del Amo Estates, Moriarty’s Carson company. The firm was a limited partnership in which Moriarty was a general partner.

As a planning commissioner, Baird said she avoided voting directly on the Moriarty project. But she voted on other issues that affected it, commission minutes show.

For example, commission minutes show she voted for an ordinance changing city requirements for developing landfill properties like Moriarty’s and she voted to approve an environmental impact report for the rezoning of Moriarty’s property and surrounding sites.

Baird also voted on a fireworks issue--even though Moriarty controlled one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of so-called “safe and sane” fireworks, Pyrotronics Corp., which made Red Devil fireworks. At the time, Carson already permitted fireworks sales in commercial zones. Baird voted to allow such sales in residential zones as well,according to commission minutes.

Baird said she did not realize she had done so.

Voted to Rezone

In the next 10 months, DeWitt also voted in favor of a number of issues affecting Moriarty. Among other things, DeWitt said she voted to rezone an area that included Moriarty’s property. She called it a “routine item.”

DeWitt also voted to initiate studies for major freeway and road improvements near Moriarty’s site and to finance state hearings to determine the levels of toxicity in all Carson landfills, including the Moriarty dump site.

Development of Moriarty’s property had been held up by the state’s concern that the site might contain dangerous levels of toxic materials. The hearings were needed to resolve those concerns, but no state money was available to pay for them.

DeWitt, who had been elected to fill an unexpired council term with only 10 months remaining, had to begin campaigning for the 1982 election almost as soon as she took her seat on the council.

Planning Commissioner Baird, who had played a key role in DeWitt’s first campaign, worked on the councilwoman’s reelection bid while employed by Moriarty’s company.

Help in Campaign

Moriarty himself helped DeWitt in this election, too, by arranging for then-Assemblyman Bruce Young to help run her campaign, according to Michael Gordon, Young’s field deputy at the time.

Young and Moriarty were close friends. In addition, Young held an interest in a Moriarty condominium project in Baldwin Hills and was driving a sport truck leased by Moriarty.

Gordon said Young called DeWitt and told her he was sending Gordon to work as a consultant in her campaign.

“I went and met with her (DeWitt) and Nita (Baird) at a restaurant in Downey and laid out the campaign for them,” said Gordon, who said that ultimately DeWitt only used part of the plan he and Young suggested.

Although DeWitt said she used Gordon in her campaign, she said she could not remember how he entered the picture. “I didn’t know Bruce (Young) sent him down here. . . . I’m on the defense all the time with this--and it seems impossible that all this could go around without a candidate knowing--but that is, in fact, what happened,” DeWitt said.

Moriarty had nothing to do with the campaign, DeWitt added.

Young could not be reached for comment.

Paid $3,800

DeWitt’s campaign committee paid Gordon about $3,800, campaign reports show. In addition, Moriarty associate Richard Keith paid Young $6,500 for Moriarty, Moriarty said.

It was in the final days of this 1982 campaign that Riconosciuto and the DeWitts discussed a loan and Riconosciuto called Moriarty.

“I asked Pat (Moriarty) to arrange the loan and (said) I would guarantee it,” said Riconosciuto, who said Moriarty agreed. Moriarty was a founder, officer and loan committee member at the Bank of Irvine, which was later declared insolvent and closed by the state.

DeWitt said the $10,000 she and her husband signed for was a business loan for factory stock and supplies for the family business, Posse Police Products Inc., which manufactured accessories for law enforcement agencies.

But several days after getting the money, the company turned around and loaned $5,000 to DeWitt’s election committee, campaign reports show. During that time, according to the records, DeWitt’s husband loaned her committee another $2,000. Neither loan was ever repaid, DeWitt said.

Denied Laundering

DeWitt denied that the $10,000 loan was a way for Moriarty to launder funds to her campaign.

“I couldn’t say that money (the $7,000 her company and husband put into her election committee) was the Bank of Irvine money. It could have been the money my folks put in. It could have been any number of things.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said.

DeWitt lost the 1982 election, but her defeat did not end her dealings with Riconosciuto.

Riconosciuto said that when the $10,000 loan approved by Moriarty came due, neither he nor the DeWitts could pay it. So Riconosciuto said he worked out a deal with Moriarty.

Moriarty paid off the loan himself, Riconosciuto said, and Riconosciuto assumed responsibility for a comparable loan owed by Moriarty.

Another Loan

Hoping to get his money from the DeWitts, Riconosciuto said he formed his own company and got exclusive rights to sell products manufactured by the DeWitts’ firm, as well as the right to collect money owed to the firm. In the course of his dealings with the DeWitts, Riconosciuto said he advanced them another $10,000 so they could continue operating. By June, 1984, the DeWitts owed him $20,000, federal court records show.

Councilwoman DeWitt, who reported an interest in the firm of more than $100,000 and was the company vice president, said she was not aware of many of the financial arrangements made at the time because they were handled by her husband, F. Carlos, from whom she was later divorced. He declined to comment.

In the course of their business dealings with Riconosciuto, the DeWitts and Nita Baird grew closer to him.

Baird, who worked for Riconosciuto, became romantically involved with him. She said she moved in with him. The DeWitts socialized with Riconosciuto and Baird.

Riconosciuto said he and F. Carlos DeWitt discussed other business ventures, and Riconosciuto said he was so impressed by DeWitt that he repeatedly tried to hire him for a manufacturing business he wanted to start in Hercules, Calif.

Social Gathering

Several months after DeWitt lost the 1982 election, she attended a small social gathering at Riconosciuto’s mobile home at which he and Baird entertained Carson’s new city administrator, Raymond L. Meador, and Carson Mayor Kay Calas.

(Calas, along with Vera DeWitt and council member Walter J. Egan, made up a pro-development voting bloc which initially supported Moriarty’s project.

(Besides being DeWitt’s friend, Calas also was her landlord. Calas’ real estate company rented offices to DeWitt. Calas lost $8,983 in back rent when DeWitt went bankrupt.)

Baird invited Vera DeWitt to attend the opening of Moriarty’s California Commerce Club in August, 1983. Riconosciuto and Moriarty were there.

By the time DeWitt was elected to the council again in 1984, Moriarty had become the focus of a statewide probe into political corruption. She continued, however, to back the Moriarty project.

On at least one occasion, DeWitt and Mayor Calas called then-City Administrator Meador into Calas’ office for a session with Riconosciuto, who had complaints against the city concerning the Moriarty project, DeWitt said.

Affected Project

DeWitt also voted at least 12 times in favor of measures affecting the Moriarty project, council minutes show.

One of those was a highly controversial measure to remove from city property records a warning that the state might declare Moriarty’s site a “hazardous waste property.”

The site has been on the state’s priority cleanup list for the last three years, but the state has not determined whether the contaminants in the 160-acre parcel pose health or safety problems.

When DeWitt cast her votes, Riconosciuto said Moriarty’s Casa del Amo Estates owed him about $18,000 in back fees for consulting on the project.

Moriarty’s firm was negotiating to sell its interest in the property to a new developer and Riconosciuto said payment for his work depended on the deal going through.

But the potential buyer insisted that he could not get financing for his project as long as city property records--a tract map--bore the hazardous waste warning.

Remove Warning

Despite advice from the city attorney that deletion of the warning would expose the city to lawsuits, council minutes show that DeWitt voted to remove the warning. Only Mayor Calas supported her, and their effort failed.

“I’m not convinced there’s hazardous wastes on that site,” DeWitt said.

She said the state was supposed to hold hearings to determine that question but has not done so.

“I don’t think it should be designated as hazardous waste unless we know it is hazardous waste,” DeWitt said.

On the issue of whether it was a conflict for her to vote on an issue that would benefit Riconosciuto, a man with whom she had close personal and financial dealings, DeWitt said: “I don’t see where the conflict is. . . . I would have to gain something out of that vote and there is no conflict (because) I gain nothing out of that.”