Aide to Judge in Ticket-Fixing Case Subpoenaed

The longtime clerk for a Beverly Hills Municipal Court judge who is under investigation for suspending fines on at least 72 parking tickets issued to his own automobile has been subpoenaed to testify before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, The Times has learned.

In addition, the administrator of the Beverly Hills Municipal Court received a subpoena ordering him to turn over to the grand jury records of parking tickets issued to a 1984 Honda owned by Judge Charles D. Boags.

Boags’ clerk, Bernadette Filosa, 35, and the court administrator, Stanley M. Seidler, 51, are to testify before the grand jury Sept. 16, Filosa and Seidler confirmed Wednesday. They said the subpoenas were served within the last two weeks. Both declined further comment.

The Times reported last April that Boags, 56, who serves as presiding judge of the Beverly Hills court, suspended more than $1,200 in fines on tickets that had been issued to his car while it was parked illegally near Beverly Hills High School. The car was driven by Boags’ 17-year-old son, Martin, the judge said in an April interview.

Although he suspended all fines, Boags recorded guilty pleas on the 72 citations.

In the April interview, Boags said he suspended the fines because he believed that his son’s car had been legally parked. The judge said he had arranged for an acquaintance living near the school to lend the youth a special resident’s parking permit. However, all of the tickets issued to the Boags car were for offenses other than parking in a permit-restricted zone, mainly for overtime parking.

Boags was unavailable Wednesday. His attorney, Richard G. Hirsch, said, “I’m confident, after looking at all the facts of the case, that (the judge) has done nothing that would result in any criminal charges.”

The grand jury subpoenas served on Filosa and Seidler are not the first to be issued in the Boags matter.

In June, several members or former members of the Beverly Hills High School football team testified before the previous grand jury about their relationship with Martin Boags, according to a source at the school. Authorities reportedly were attempting to learn whether the judge’s son, who once played on the team, was involved in the disposition of parking tickets issued to cars driven by team members or other high school students.

The testimony of the youths remains sealed.

Gilbert I. Garcetti, chief deputy district attorney, and Edward E. Roseman, foreman of the 1986-87 Los Angeles County Grand Jury, on Wednesday declined direct comment on the latest subpoenas.

“I can tell you the case is still being reviewed and is still being actively investigated by our office,” Garcetti said.

Garcetti said the district attorney’s office, not the grand jury, will decide whether Boags should be charged with a criminal offense.

According to several legal experts, the district attorney’s office involved the grand jury in the Boags investigation because the jury has the power to compel testimony under oath, a power that is not granted to deputy district attorneys or their investigators.

In an interview last April, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Healey, who is handling the Boags investigation, said the inquiry was focusing on whether the judge was aided by anyone else in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

“If the judge was doing this on his own,” Healy said at the time, “I’m not aware presently of any section of the criminal law that was violated.” Healey declined to comment on the case Wednesday.

In addition to the criminal investigation, The Times has learned that the California Commission on Judicial Performance has begun a preliminary inquiry into the Boags matter.

The nine-member commission is empowered to recommend the censure, removal or forced retirement of judges. The final decision is made by the state Supreme Court.

Jack E. Frankel, the commission’s director and chief counsel, refused Wednesday to discuss the Boags matter, citing commission rules that bar disclosure of investigations.

The state’s Code of Judicial Ethics, which guides the commission’s work, requires a judge to disqualify himself from a case when he “ . . . knows that he, individually or as a fiduciary, or his spouse or minor child residing in his household, has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy. . . .”