Killing Suspect Listed as Willie Brown Donor

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, whose political contributors and benefactors range from actor George Hamilton to the FBI, now has added to his list Dorothea Montalvo Puente--the landlady suspected of killing seven of her boarders.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Brown said when told of the contribution.

Although friends said Puente often bragged of having connections to the King of Jordan, the former Shah of Iran and the Pope, Brown said he neither knows her nor was aware of her contribution.

Puente appears in a Brown campaign contribution report as a $100 donor to his End of the Session Bash, a gala party that the Speaker sponsors annually to celebrate the completion of the legislative session and to raise money for voter registration.

Susan Jetton, Brown’s press secretary, said that Puente may have purchased two $50 tickets to the event, but she didn’t know who sold them to her. “They were being sold all over,” she said. “She probably bought them at one of the bars near the Capitol.”

Friends say Puente tried on occasion to give the appearance that she had great wealth. They said she gave lavish tips to bartenders, distributed expensive gifts to their patrons and contributed generously to charities.

On his contribution disclosure form, Brown’s staff dutifully reported Puente as living at “1426 F Street,” the address where police recently dug up the decomposed remains of seven people.