Aides Describe Political Fund Work by Official Named in Probe

A Chula Vista city councilman and member of the California Coastal Commission who is under investigation by the San Diego County district attorney’s office for allegedly discussing blowing up an expensive home to collect the insurance has done fund-raising work for several leading state Democratic politicians, campaign aides said Sunday.

David L. Malcolm, 32, was listed on a campaign letterhead as one of those who invited people to a San Diego fund-raiser for Democratic state controller candidate Gray Davis, Davis spokesman Mike Gage said.

Gage said he also had been informed that Malcolm, despite being a registered Republican, had helped other statewide Democratic candidates, but that could not immediately be confirmed.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) appointed Malcolm to the Coastal Commission in 1984. Some of those on the commission and others who follow its activities closely believed the Chula Vista councilman had a close relationship to Brown.

‘Fairly Easy Access’

A former commissioner, Long Beach attorney Melvin L. Nutter, said Sunday: “It was very clear while I was on the commission that Malcolm had fairly easy and regular access to Willie Brown. He enjoyed letting people know about that.” Nutter added that Malcolm had told him on occasion that Brown was attending political fund-raisers Malcolm was putting on for candidates.

Brown’s chief political lieutenant, Richard Ross, said Sunday that he could not confirm close connections between Brown and Malcolm. “I don’t know the guy,” Ross said. “I have never met him. I’ve heard the name, . . . but there are a lot of people who claim to be close to Willie Brown.”

Malcolm also had previously been accused of using threats of political retribution against Nutter and, in a separate incident, against another coastal commissioner.

In a 1983 lawsuit to block the city of Chula Vista’s plan to develop the bayfront, the Sierra Club alleged that Malcolm threatened Nutter with political retribution if Nutter did not vote in favor of the plan. The allegation is contained in one of the Sierra Club’s legal briefs, said Joan Jackson, chairperson of the group’s conservation committee.

At a coastal commission meeting earlier this month, Commissioner Steve MacElvaine angrily denounced Malcolm for threatening him with political retribution from a state senator and a lobbyist, neither of whom he named. MacElvaine’s vehement display came during a discussion about a development in Carlsbad.

“It was undue influence. That isn’t the way things are supposed to work,” MacElvaine said the day after the Oct. 9 meeting. “I wanted to make sure that since it was the first time, that it was also the last time,” MacElvaine said, referring to the threat.

In response, Malcolm called the incident a misunderstanding. “I couldn’t believe the comment when he said it,” Malcolm said. Gage, spokesman for Davis, said Malcolm has no continuing official function with the Gray Davis campaign, which was embarrassed last month by revelations that its then-finance chairman, Eugene La Pietra of West Hollywood, had been convicted in the mid-1970s on federal and state obscenity charges. Davis dismissed La Pietra from his post after the convictions were disclosed.

Gage said Malcolm had made no personal contributions to Davis and had chiefly been involved in helping to stage a recent fund-raiser for him at the home of Robert Quick, a San Diegan who had previously been a supporter of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Davis served Brown as executive secretary when Brown was governor from 1975 to 1983.

Attempts to reach Malcolm for comment were unsuccessful. His wife said he was not at home.

A spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney’s office said last week that prosecutors are trying to determine whether tapes in which Malcolm purportedly discusses blowing up a house in order to collect the insurance were evidence of wrongdoing by Malcolm or were used in an extortion attempt against him.

Topic of Discussion

No actual attempt was made to destroy the home. On the tapes, copies of which were obtained by The Times, a man who said he was Malcolm discussed financial problems with the house, how it should be burned, how the insurance money would be divided, how the arsonist would be paid and the alibi that would be used to throw off investigators.

The other party to the conversations, William M. Hirsch, a Malcolm adviser, initiated the talk about the proposed arson. Malcolm on Saturday said he was leading Hirsch on in the conversations.