Firm Didn’t Intend to Fund Africa Trip

An African trade trip by Mayor Tom Bradley and two aides was paid for from a charitable contribution by a giant electronics firm that says it never intended such a use for the monies, The Times has learned.

Sources familiar with the financing of the trip, under scrutiny by city prosecutors, said that most of a $50,000 donation made in 1986 to a Chinatown nonprofit business development group went to pay for the Africa trip and other travels by an aide.

A spokesman for the firm, Matsushita Electric Corp. of America, the parent company of Panasonic Co., said the donation was supposed to help small, minority businesses in Los Angeles and expressed surprise when told by a reporter Wednesday how the money was spent.

“We would totally disapprove of that,” the spokesman, Justin Camerlengo, said in a telephone interview from the firm’s New Jersey headquarters. “That is not what we envision as the highest and best use of the funds.”

One source close to the mayor who is familiar with the financing of the trip estimated that up to $40,000 of the funds went to pay for the Africa trip expenses of Bradley, his longtime special assistant William Elkins and his director of small business assistance, Wilfred Marshall.

The Africa trip recently became part of a broad inquiry into Bradley’s financial ties to firms or individuals that do business with the city.

The city attorney’s office is investigating who paid for the 1987 trip to the African nation of Ivory Coast and for a 1985 trip to Israel. Bradley did not disclose who paid for the trips on his annual financial statement. His lawyers have contended that he is not required to but the state Fair Political Practices Commission disagrees.

The funding for the Africa trip took a circuitous route for reasons that are not entirely clear. One knowledgeable source close to the mayor described the route as “extraordinarily weird.”

Camerlengo and others said the Matsushita donation was made to the nonprofit Asian-American Economic Development Enterprises Inc., a business group formed in the 1970s. A source close to the mayor said Marshall had been assigned by the mayor to organize the Africa trip and arrange financing.

Meanwhile, Marshall said, he was approached by the firm, which wanted to contribute to the business community. Marshall said he referred firm officials to several community groups, including the Asian-American group; later he approached the Asian-American organization about paying for the Africa trip.

Matsushita chose the Asian-American group. The money was subsequently transferred to a newly formed entity called the Small Business Development Group, which paid for the trip.

Camerlengo said he “seriously doubts” that the firm knew about the transfer.

But attorney David B. Woo, president of the Asian-American group, said he believes that Matsushita knew about it. The SBDG was a legally separate, joint venture between his business group and some unidentified black community groups, Woo said.

“It was brought to us that there were opportunities in Africa for export,” he said, adding that Marshall was instrumental in setting up the joint venture.

Elkins sat on the four-member SBDG board with Woo and approved expenditures. Neither could immediately give details of how all the funds were used, although Woo acknowledged that most of the money went to pay for travel of the mayor and his aides.

Elkins said the funds were used legally and properly, in keeping with the general purposes of the donation. He said Matsushita never placed conditions on how its donation could be used.

In addition to the Africa trip, the SBDG paid for Marshall to go on at least two other trade trips--one to the Far East and one to Washington. Woo said the SBDG also spent some of the money to set up a computer listing of minority business firms.

Another source close to the mayor who asked not to be named said Bradley had not heard of the SBDG until a reporter made inquiries. It was the mayor’s understanding, the source said, that the Asian-American group had paid for the trip, whose purpose was to promote trade between small Los Angeles businesses and African nations.

Deputy Mayor Michael Gage also said he had never heard of the SBDG and did not know of Elkins’ involvement with the group.

Times staff writers Glenn F. Bunting and Tracy Wood contributed to this story.