Opponent Accuses Lowery of Election Law Violations

The Democratic challenger to U.S. Rep. Bill Lowery charged Tuesday that Lowery violated campaign finance and ethics laws by using the San Diego condominium of a defense contractor now under indictment for defrauding the government.

Dr. Dan Kripke said Lowery, a Republican who represents the 41st Congressional District, failed to report the full value of his use in 1984 and 1985 of a luxury, three-bedroom unit at the Le Rondelet condominium complex in Point Loma. The condominium is owned by Jet Air Inc., an El Cajon jet parts manufacturer that, along with its owner George T. Straza, was indicted this month on felony charges of defrauding the government of $250,000 in an Air Force contract.

Kripke, a 44-year-old psychiatrist, said he has sent formal complaints about the matter to the Federal Election Commission and to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in Washington.

Lowery, who does not own a home in San Diego and sometimes stays with his mother in Tierrasanta, has said he stayed at the penthouse Rondelet unit about 20 times in both 1984 and 1985. Lowery was unavailable for comment Tuesday but Karl Higgins, his campaign manager, said the visits were legitimate campaign expenses.

“The Rondelet is one of a number of places that Bill Lowery stays at,” Higgins said. “The bottom line is we paid for the stuff.”

Higgins said Lowery wrote two personal checks to Jet Air for $1,200 each on Feb. 7, 1985, and Feb. 11, 1986--months after the visits--and was later reimbursed with campaign funds.

Before this month’s indictment, Straza was on probation from a conviction in 1984 stemming from improprieties involving a $2.4-million contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Jet Air was to manufacture parts for the space shuttle, but Straza was accused of telling the space agency his company did the work when it was actually performed by a subcontractor in Burbank.

After the 1984 conviction, Lowery spoke with former NASA administrator James Beggs and other agency officials to make sure Straza’s firm wouldn’t be shut out from bidding on other government contracts.

That means Lowery may have violated House ethics guidelines when he also accepted the hospitality of Jet Air by using its condominium, Kripke charged.

Kripke also said Tuesday that the visits could not be considered campaign expenses, especially in the non-election year of 1985. Even if they were campaign expenses, Kripke said, the $2,400 paid was well below market value for 40 nights, at an average cost of $60 a night.

As a comparison, the Democratic challenger released copies of rate cards for six Point Loma and Shelter Island hotels, where rooms cost $100 to $400 a night.

A Rondelet homeowner said Tuesday that a unit similar to Jet Air’s sold a few years ago for $400,000.

A spokesman for Jet Air declined to state the value of the condominium unit or how much it rents for, but an attorney for the company said it was primarily for visitors doing business with Jet Air.

Higgins said Lowery paid market value for the rooms and that the FEC would rule on whether the visits were campaign expenses. He said Lowery stayed at Le Rondelet because it is near downtown, but said he did not know what days Lowery stayed there.

“Lowery was billed at the end of the year for his casual and infrequent use of the Rondelet,” Higgins said. “I’d be surprised if Jet Air is someone who sends out monthly bills.”

He said Lowery’s lobbying for Jet Air during the same year he stayed at the company’s condominium were “two unrelated coincidences” and that Lowery had, on occasion, been forced to leave the condo to make room for other Jet Air guests or employees.

He said that Kripke’s charges were groundless. “I think that our opponent is a professional muckraker,” Higgins said. “This is a continuation of this campaign by harassment and headline, and I fully expect the FEC will vindicate him (Lowery) again.

“I think we’ve reached the silly season,” Higgins said. “We’d love to campaign on things like the border and drugs and offshore drilling . . . but for someone running for a federal office, Dan Kripke is incredibly and dangerously ignorant of local issues.”

Kripke said the Le Rondelet visits showed the congressman received favors for defending a troubled defense contractor.

“It’s very serious,” Kripke said. “The congressman was willing to provide for Jet Air to cheat the government and threaten our national defense . . . to imperil our fighter pilots.

“I believe they don’t want to disclose those dates (of use of condominium) because they would have trouble proving that there were campaign activities then. To escape one violation, they just fall into another. There’s just no way this is honest. . . . It’s a sweetheart deal that they can’t conceal.”

Mike McCabe, a Jet Air attorney, also said Tuesday that former state Sen. James R. Mills resigned as company president Thursday for “as variety of reasons.” A federal grand jury in San Diego indicted Jet Air and Straza on Aug. 14 on 31 counts of defrauding the federal government by not disclosing the company’s failure to complete required quality inspections on engine seals in the Air Force’s F-15 and F-16 jets.

McCabe said Mills’ resignation was effective immediately and that a new president will be sought in the next two weeks.