City Subpoenas Financial Documents of Bradley Friend

The executive director of a controversial Africa trade group with close ties to Mayor Tom Bradley wrote more than $180,000 in checks to herself or to “cash” and has been unwilling or unable to account for the city funds, City Controller Rick Tuttle said Tuesday.

“We’ve been asking for financial documents necessary to substantiate certain expenditures,” said Tuttle in explaining why he took the rare step last week of issuing a subpoena to the director, Juanita St. John. The subpoena, served Friday on St. John at her San Marino home, demands personal financial records, as well as those for the trade group, Task Force for Africa/Los Angeles Relations.

“We got some (records), but for a month, Juanita St. John has not been forthcoming. I’m in a no-stone-unturned mode and decided it was time to use the subpoena.” Tuttle said, adding that it was, to his knowledge, the first time a Los Angeles controller has used subpoena power.

St. John is a friend and a partner of Bradley in a Riverside County real estate investment. The Africa task force received roughly $400,000 in city funds between 1985 and 1989 at the request of Bradley, who is being investigated for possible conflict of interest in his financial dealings with institutions that do business with the city. The controller, the city attorney and other agencies are looking into whether St. John and the task force improperly benefitted from her ties with the mayor.

The subpoena comes as the trade group is apparently near collapse, according to its chairman, Richard Parsons.

Parsons said the group is essentially broke now with the loss of its city funding earlier this year.

Bradley dropped his request for task force funding from this fiscal year’s budget in the wake of controversy over his ties with the task force and its activities.

The task force did not seek to renew its just-expired, rent-free lease for office space at UCLA, Parsons said, adding that the group will soon be forced to disband if it cannot find a new financial backer. At this point, Parsons said, fund-raising is “our primary function.”

St. John did not return telephone calls to her office and her home Tuesday. She has maintained throughout the inquiry that she has done nothing improper and that she could produce all the documents required. The mayor refused to comment on the subpoena or any other aspect of the city controller’s investigation.

The task force and Bradley’s relationship with it is also being examined by the city attorney, who does not have the power to issue subpoenas. Mike Qualls, spokesman for the city attorney’s office, said Tuesday that the controller and city attorney are cooperating in their separate investigations and are sharing information.

Parsons said St. John is on vacation and has been preoccupied with personal matters, including her daughter’s pending marriage and her husband’s ill health. Parsons said he was unaware of the subpoena and unable to answer any questions about the group’s finances.

“The whole task force is Juanita,” Parsons said.

The board of directors is simply an advisory group that St. John calls on to “augment her experience on Africa. . . . We don’t get involved in budgets or funding,” he said. Parsons added that he too has been unable to reach St. John recently.

The expenses that Tuttle wants documented are over and above the $40,000 annual salary that St. John draws as the only paid employee of the task force. He has demanded “all receipts and other documents substantiating, explaining or otherwise relating to” the task force checks that St. John wrote to herself and to “cash” between July, 1985, and June of this year. Tuttle has also asked for all banking records of the task force, the personal banking records of St. John and her family and St. John’s credit card receipts.

St. John has until 10 a.m. on July 21 to turn over the requested documents to the controller.