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

WASHINGTON — 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)