Moriarty Free After 29 Months in U.S. Prison

After serving 29 months of a five-year prison term on political corruption charges, W. Patrick Moriarty was released from federal prison here Thursday afternoon.

Moriarty, who was greeted by his wife and 11 other family members, was driven out of the prison in a large, tan motor home decorated with yellow ribbons.

After pulling over at a Lompoc shopping center, Moriarty greeted reporters while sipping champagne from a paper cup and holding a young grandson in his arms.

“It’s great to be out,” he said. “It’s great to be a free man. The worst part of incarceration is the denial of your freedom.”

Moriarty’s release came four hours after a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena accepted a deal worked out in the last week between Moriarty’s lawyer, Jan Lawrence Handzlik, and federal prosecutors.

Supreme Court Decision

The agreement to release Moriarty by U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner was struck primarily because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that made it virtually certain that Moriarty’s 1985 conviction on federal mail fraud violations would be reversed.

Fearing that Moriarty could never again be convicted of any crimes in connection with a case he once described as “the most significant corruption case in recent California history,” Bonner reluctantly accepted a proposal that salvaged two of Moriarty’s original guilty pleas.

Moriarty, who was appealing his conviction because of the Supreme Court’s 1987 McNally decision on federal mail fraud statutes, agreed to drop his appeal on two mail fraud counts relating to kickbacks to an official of the California Canadian Bank.

In exchange, the government dropped three mail fraud convictions relating to the bribery of City of Commerce officials to obtain a poker license for the California Commerce Club.

The U.S. attorney’s office also agreed that Moriarty will no longer have to forfeit $3.4 million he received from the sale of stock in the poker club and cannot be prosecuted for any other crimes investigated during the last four years.

The negotiations that resulted in Moriarty’s release began one week earlier when Handzlik presented government prosecutors with two recent 9th Circuit decisions supporting the Supreme Court’s McNally ruling.

‘Process Was Difficult’

“The negotiating process was difficult,” Handzlik said Thursday. “I convinced the U.S. attorney that recent decisions made the government’s position untenable. Once they realized that, things went smoothly.”

Handzlik hammered out Moriarty’s release during several meetings with former Chief Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard E. Drooyan, who has continued to handle appellate issues in the Moriarty case as a special federal prosecutor despite entering private practice earlier this year.

While Drooyan was the primary negotiator for the government, the deal was eventually approved by Bonner over the objections of Orange County prosecutors, who have played a joint investigative role in the Moriarty case since it began.

“I don’t want to get into the specifics, but we did not concur,” said Orange County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Capizzi.

Despite the split between Capizzi and Bonner over whether the government should take a tougher stand in considering the possibility of filing new charges against Moriarty, a final agreement was reached with Handzlik on Wednesday night.

The official notification to the 9th Circuit came during a five-minute hearing in which Handzlik told Judges William A. Norris, Charles E. Wiggins and Eugene Wright:

“The government and the defendant have arrived at a stipulated resolution of this matter.”

Remaining Bank Charges

Handzlik told the 9th Circuit that Moriarty was originally sentenced to three years on the Commerce card club charges and two consecutive years on the California Canadian Bank counts. Since the Commerce convictions were being dropped, he said, Moriarty had already served more time than his two-year sentence on the remaining bank charges allowed.

After whispered exchanges, the panel of federal judges quickly decided that everything was in order for Moriarty’s immediate release.

“It is so ordered,” Norris said.

As Moriarty’s wife, Doreen, and 10 other family members left the courtroom, some began to weep and all donned the yellow ribbons similar to those they later used to decorate the mobile home that took them all from Pasadena to await Moriarty’s release from Lompoc.

“I’m elated,” Doreen Moriarty said. “I’m very glad it’s over. But until we have him behind the door in our house, we won’t really believe it’s over.”

Moriarty’s release marked the end of a chapter in California politics that began in the early 1980s with his efforts as owner of Red Devil Fireworks to ally himself with state and local politicians to promote the passage of so-called “safe-and-sane” fireworks legislation that would have made it legal to sell Moriarty’s fireworks throughout the state.

At the height of his power between 1980 and 1983, Moriarty and his associates contributed nearly $600,000 to politicians in California, about half of it illegally laundered through others, according to business associates.

Eventually the Moriarty case led to the indictment of 11 defendants, including Moriarty and business associates as well as city officials in Commerce, Long Beach and Carson. Also indicted and ultimately convicted was former Norwalk Assemblyman Bruce Young, one of many state legislators who supported Moriarty’s fireworks bills.

In summing up the deal for Moriarty’s release, Bonner said he would have much preferred seeing Moriarty remain in prison.

“There is no question that the McNally decision severely restricted our ability to prosecute state and local corruption under the mail fraud statute,” Bonner said. “It is with great reluctance that we dismiss any of the charges against Moriarty.”

Handzlik said the timing of Moriarty’s release caught the Orange County millionaire by surprise and came about 10 months before he would have been eligible for release on early parole. As a result, Handzlik said, Moriarty does not know his immediate future plans.

“It will take some time before he figures out exactly what he will be doing,” Handzlik said. “Right now, our immediate goal has been achieved-- reuniting him with his wife and family.”