Young Admits Encounters With Prostitute : Ex-Lawmaker Says He Didn’t Know, Assails Selective Prosecution in Case

The attorney for former Assemblyman Bruce E. Young said for the first time Tuesday that Young unknowingly used a prostitute provided by a principal in the political corruption scandal revolving around convicted fireworks magnate W. Patrick Moriarty.

“(Young), at one point in time, when he was either separated or divorced from his wife, spent some time with a lady he later learned did it for money and not love,” defense attorney Donald H. Heller said.

The disclosure came at Young’s first formal news conference in two years. It was held at his lawyer’s office here.

Young and Heller also asserted that the former Democratic legislator’s prosecution is part of what they contend is an effort by Orange County prosecutors to pursue liberal Democrats close to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

Young further claimed that prosecutors were not interested in pursuing “at least one powerful senator,” who he said did $120,000 in business with one of Moriarty’s companies and did not publicly report the transaction as required by state law. Young refused to name the senator.

Chief Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Drooyan said allegations that he was engaged in selective prosecution were “not true.”

“I don’t want to get into the specifics of the investigation, but his claim is just not true. I don’t think it is appropriate for us to litigate the issues in the media,” Drooyan said.

Young, a Norwalk Democrat who quit the Assembly in 1984 to become a Sacramento lobbyist, is fighting a federal grand jury indictment filed in August charging him with 28 counts of mail fraud in allegedly filing false financial disclosure statements in connection with payments he received from Moriarty and a Los Angeles cable television firm.

Moriarty earlier this year was sentenced to seven years in prison for mail fraud stemming from bribery of public officials, laundering political campaign funds and paying kickbacks to bankers. In the process, he used prostitutes, money and other favors.

Until Tuesday, Young denied that he used prostitutes. Although he is not specifically charged with receiving the services of a prostitute, Heller said Young was dealing with the issue “forthrightly” because federal prosecutors have indicated that they will use the information in Young’s trial, which is scheduled to begin Nov. 4.

“It is not a pleasant thing to talk about; it is certainly not a pleasant thing to admit,” Heller said.

He said Young “never paid a prostitute for services, was not aware that this lady was a prostitute at the time she developed a relationship with my client and had no idea that Mr. Moriarty or anyone else had anything to do with the arrangement.”

Young let Heller do most of the talking during the press conference, frequently nodding in agreement. Heller said Young was introduced to the woman by Richard Raymond Keith, a Moriarty business associate and friend of Young who is serving a federal prison term for his role in the scandal.

“My client thought he was going to a big party. It was a big party. But it turns out that the women there were paid to be there. We are not talking about the garden variety hooker that one sees in the alleyways of Sacramento or Los Angeles or on the street corners. These were, for the most part, college girls working their way through school,” Heller said.

Heller said Young had relations with only one of the prostitutes whom he saw on a number of occasions.

Young attended the press conference with his second wife, Karen. The two held hands as Heller spoke.

For his part, Young said he broke his self-imposed silence because he had watched as other figures in the Moriarty scandal “kind of silently and quietly went to the prearranged gallows.”

Young said he initially tried to cooperate with the government but then refused because of what he claimed was a selective investigation.

‘Select List’

“The problem with my cooperation is that they only want some of the information that I have, that I may have knowledge of,” Young said. “There is a select list of those that they want information on and those they don’t want information on.”

Later, Young and Heller claimed that those the prosecutors were after were “liberal Democrats” with ties to Speaker Brown, a black. Heller said he wondered whether prosecutors would have the same interest “if Willie Brown were white.”

Assistant Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael Capizzi, one of those with whom Young said he discussed the unidentified state senator, said he had no recollection of such a conversation.

“If he is aware of someone who’s committed criminal violations, he certainly knows where our door is and how to communicate with us,” Capizzi said.