LOCAL : Dixon Says Panel Hiring of Airport Official Not Connected With Wife

Rep. Julian Dixon, chairman of the House Ethics Committee, said today there was no connection between the panel’s hiring of the president of the Los Angeles airport commission in 1986 and a lucrative investment by Dixon’s wife in shops at the airport.

Dixon said Johnnie L. Cochran, a Los Angeles attorney, was paid $170,000 in 1986 and 1987 for legal work for the Ethics Committee.

“I did hire Cochran to do work on the St Germain case,” Dixon (D-Los Angeles) said in a telephone interview, referring to a probe into the personal finances of Rep. Fernand J. St Germain (D-R.I.).

Two months after the House committee retained Cochran on Feb. 5, 1986, the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners awarded a concession to run seven duty-free stores at the airport to a joint venture that included companies in which Dixon’s wife, Betty, in July of 1986 bought a 12% interest. Her investment earned her over $150,000 in 1987 and 1988, according to Dixon’s financial disclosure forms for those years. (Story, Part I, Page 1)