Witness in Fraud Case Against Councilman Is Focus of Investigation

Several weeks after she testified against a Compton city councilman accused of election fraud, Francesca Houpe received a visit from police.

On Aug. 14, two Compton officers went to a fenced-off portion of her backyard and dug up three marijuana plants growing among the weeds. Houpe wasn’t home that day. But a week later, officers returned and arrested the 34-year-old divorced mother of two.

Houpe had never before been accused of a crime, and she denied having anything to do with the marijuana. On Aug. 29, a Compton-based prosecutor ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove she had actually grown the marijuana.

Last week, however, the case was given sudden new attention by the Special Investigations Division of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, as a result of two actions by Councilman Floyd A. James, against whom Houpe had testified:

- James was the person who alerted police to the marijuana on Houpe’s property, according to sources familiar with the case.

- James discussed Houpe’s arrest with Compton City Atty. Wesley Fenderson Jr., who subsequently asked the City Council to hold a public hearing, set for Tuesday, on whether to declare Houpe’s residence a public nuisance, sources said. Such a step could lead to its confiscation.

James was bound over July 1 for trial on felony election fraud charges based in part on testimony from Houpe. He and a political aide are accused of vote-buying during the 1985 campaign through an alleged conspiracy to give record albums to voters in return for a pledge of support.

Houpe, who was among those who received an album, testified against James at his preliminary hearing.

The fraud case against James and his aide was on the verge of being settled last week, apparently by a plea bargain. But at the last minute, Deputy Dist. Atty. Candace J. Beason won a week’s delay to give her time to determine if James tried to use his position to harass a witness.

“We are not conducting an investigation per se” because neither of James’ actions constitute a crime, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Sowders, head of the Special Investigations Division, which handles public corruption matters, among other things. “That doesn’t mean we’re not concerned with it, and we have made some inquiries.”

James declined to comment last week, saying only that “I will not deal with that because I want to talk to my attorney first.”

His lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., said, “I don’t believe he’s done anything improper and he’s not tried to use his position at all to bother this lady.”

Cochran said he expects city officials to release documents this week that he said “will clearly indicate” that James “was not the precipitating or moving force for any action taken by the Compton Police Department against Ms. Houpe.”

City Atty. Fenderson did not return several calls from a Times reporter seeking an interview on the allegations against James.

May Affect Bargain

Sowders said that if James was involved in any attempt to harass Houpe it could cause prosecutors to withdraw any plea bargain in the councilman’s election fraud case, which is scheduled to go before a judge Monday.

Sowders said prosecutors are trying to determine whether Compton’s year-old public nuisance ordinance, designed to rid the city of the drug sellers and drug users who live there, has ever applied in a case similar to Houpe’s.

City records show that most of the 15 to 20 public nuisance proceedings to date have focused on houses or apartments from which undercover officers have purchased drugs.

Last May, for example, the council ruled that one house was a public nuisance after police conducted two raids on the property, once finding $25,000 in cash and cocaine worth $125,000, and another time finding $8,000 in cash and cocaine valued at $150,000.

But the council also declared another house a public nuisance in July after police made an undercover purchase of drugs there and found two marijuana plants on the property.

Harassment Charged

In a recent interview, Houpe charged that James and city officials “just want me to show up before the City Council so they can harass and belittle me in front of my fellow community (members) . . . and to discredit my testimony against Floyd James in the case that he has for voter fraud.” All City Council meetings are carried by a Compton cable TV channel.

Houpe, who works two jobs as a computer operator to support her school-age children, said she is “very concerned that the City Council would let their office be used to harass” someone in her position.

The police report of Houpe’s arrest said the investigation began “in response to a tip by an anonymous citizen informant.” Houpe said she was later told by one of the investigating officers that the informant was James. That officer and his supervisor declined to comment.

In response to the tip, two members of the Police Department’s narcotics crime suppression unit were dispatched to an address in the northeast part of the city, later determined to be Houpe’s house. As they drove along a back alley they “observed what we recognized” as a marijuana plant poking six to eight inches over a fence. Upon finding no one home, the officers entered the backyard and spotted three marijuana plants, eight-feet, six-feet and three-feet high, in cultivated plots on opposite sides of a garage apartment that Houpe had rented to a friend.

Taken as Evidence

“Two of the plants appeared to have been recently pruned and were anchored to nearby supports with string,” the report said.

The officers uprooted the marijuana for use as evidence, and interviewed one of Houpe’s next-door neighbors, 21-year-old James McDonald. They reported that McDonald said he “had personal knowledge” that Houpe frequently sold quantities of marijuana from the residence and that McDonald said he had observed Houpe “on several occasions watering and tending” the plants.

Earlier this week, McDonald did not respond to a message left at his home, requesting an interview for this article.

When Houpe was arrested by police, she said she denied selling any drugs and said she knew nothing about the marijuana, explaining that the portion of her yard where the plants were found had been rented to a tenant who moved out shortly before her arrest.

Based on that information and the fact that officers had been unable to reach McDonald for closer questioning, Houpe’s case was rejected by Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald L. Carlson, one of several Compton-based prosecutors assigned to review the preliminary evidence behind each arrest.

Finding of Inquiry

In mid-September, however, the matter was re-examined by Carlson’s supervisor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Romeyn, who decided that Houpe’s statements to police indicated that she was aware of the marijuana plants and therefore might be guilty of aiding and abetting the commission of a crime.

Romeyn said last week that he had been asked to review the case by his boss, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert P. Heflin. Besides being chief of the district attorney’s Compton office, Heflin is a member of a high-profile community crime task force led by James.

Heflin did not return a call for comment last week. But through Romeyn, Heflin said James had nothing to do with his request to review the evidence against Houpe.

Sowders said the case review is now being handled by prosecutors in Los Angeles “to eliminate the appearance of conflict of interest.”

“There’s the appearance of an association there (between Heflin and James as colleagues on the crime task force) that I can tell you from my own experience with Heflin, it doesn’t mean anything,” Sowders said.