Indictment in Letter Forgery Pleases Floyd and His Mother

On the eve of the Nov. 4, 1986, general election, Democratic Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd accompanied his mother, Viola, to her Lawndale post office box.

To their surprise, she, along with thousands of other voters in his 53rd District, received a letter purportedly from then-President Reagan, accusing her son of “caving in to the powerful underworld drug industry.”

On Monday--27 months later--the Sacramento County Grand Jury indicted Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) on one felony count of forgery for his role in mailing out thousands of the letters.

Floyd, never one to mince words, declared that other Republican assemblymen should also be indicted.

“The sons of bitches ought to go away for life without possibility of parole,” Floyd said in an interview Tuesday.

“It was more than a forged letter,” the Carson Democrat said. “It was a first-class mailing the day before the election, full of lies on White House stationery, with a forgery of the President’s signature.”

Floyd immediately denounced the letter and called on law enforcement officials to investigate it and similar but milder “Reagan” letters attacking five other Democrats. All six were on White House stationery and “signed” by Reagan.

Family Was Embarrassed

Floyd said this week that he pursued the issue partly because his family, especially his mother, was distressed and embarrassed by the letter.

Viola Floyd, who celebrated her 85th birthday on Election Day 1986, recalled Wednesday that the letter shocked her.

“I was mad. I knew right well there was something wrong,” she said. “I knew Dick never did such a thing, and I knew the President would never stoop that low.”

After an internal investigation, the White House said the letters were authorized by neither the President nor any of his aides.

Despite the letter, which arrived at the end of a bruising campaign against Republican challenger Roger E. Fiola, Floyd was reelected by a margin of 6,189 votes.

A Republican legislative source who asked not to be identified speculated that one of the reasons Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, a Democrat, pursued the investigation was because of public pressure from Floyd, one of the Assembly’s most outspoken and partisan members. If the mailer had targeted a less vocal Democrat, the source suggested, the controversy might have died down.

Alan Ashby, a Van de Kamp spokesman, denied that assertion, saying the decision to prosecute Lewis “was based on our review of the evidence. It was not based on pressure from any public official.” But Van de Kamp’s announcement of the indictment acknowledged that “targets of the mailers requested that the attorney general’s office investigate the matter.”

Lewis said Tuesday that he will eventually be exonerated and he denounced the indictment. “Van de Kamp has a long history of winking at Democrat indiscretions” but “has doggedly pursued this opportunity to go after Republicans,” Lewis said in a prepared statement.

GOP lawmakers cited cases in which they claimed Van de Kamp had failed to act against Democrats, including one in which Floyd was allegedly involved. In a letter last April, Assemblyman Phillip Wyman (R-Tehachapi) told Van de Kamp that he had been “the target of unauthorized endorsement letters during the 1984 general election.” One of the endorsements was accompanied by a letter from Floyd criticizing Wyman on a veterans issue.

Van de Kamp referred the issue to Kern County Dist. Atty. Ed Jagels. On Wednesday, Jagels said his office had declined to prosecute because the three-year statute of limitations had run out.

Floyd denied Wednesday that he did anything improper in the campaign against Wyman, pointing out that he signed his own letter. “It was from me. I didn’t go around the side door,” Floyd said.

During the controversy over the phony Reagan letters, Floyd has kept the issue alive by reminding voters and lawmakers that he was the target of the strongest letter purportedly signed by Reagan. In his reelection campaign last fall, he distributed printed copies of news stories about the letters and warned voters that Assemblyman Pat Nolan, then Assembly GOP leader, was again trying to oust him from office.

Floyd said the Reagan letters issue became so highly charged because the allegations were untrue and because they were deeply felt by his family.

“It was my momma’s 85th birthday and it was pretty hard for her to read,” he said. “Then, I had to get in contact with my daughters who live in the district” and explain the situation to them, he said.

For Viola Floyd, Monday’s action by the grand jury marked the end of a bitter chapter.

“I feel real happy,” she said.