Commingling of Trade Unit Funds Probed

Funds for a city-financed Africa trade group that figures in the investigation of Mayor Tom Bradley were commingled in the personal checking account of a mayoral aide, city officials revealed Thursday.

Tony DeGuzman, chief auditor in the city controller’s office, said records he has obtained and interviews with Juanita St. John, executive director of the Task Force for Africa/Los Angeles Relations, indicate that task force funds and personal funds were commingled in a checking account belonging to St. John’s daughter.

He declined to elaborate, but Deputy City Atty. Michael Guarino identified the daughter as Kathy St. John, a staff aide to Bradley.

According to Guarino, Juanita St. John said in an interview with DeGuzman earlier this year “that she had been using her daughter’s checking account for task force purposes.”

Officials would not indicate how much money they believe passed through Kathy St. John’s account, or how the funds were used.

Wants Family’s Records

Guarino said the city is attempting to force Juanita St. John to produce records from checking accounts of family members. The records are among those “critical to resolving the central question of what has happened to public funds placed in her trust,” Guarino said.

The task force has been one focus of a wide-ranging probe of possible conflicts of interest between Bradley’s public duties and personal business dealings. Juanita St. John, who has earned $40,000 annually as director of the task force, is a longtime friend and partner with Bradley in a Riverside County real estate deal. Chiefly on the strength of Bradley’s personal support for the task force, the group has received some $400,000 in recent years.

Bradley has denied any conflict of interest.

After news reports alleging task force board members benefited from the group’s activities, the city controller and city attorney began investigating how tax money was used. The city, claiming it made repeated efforts to secure task force records, filed misdemeanor charges against Juanita St. John for failing to provide subpoenaed records showing how $180,000 in city funds were spent.

Arraignment Delayed

On Thursday, Juanita St. John’s lawyers won a postponement of her arraignment on the charges, pending the outcome of a series of challenges they have filed to the legality of City Controller Rick Tuttle’s subpoena. Municipal Court Judge Stephen Marcus rescheduled the arraignment for Sept. 15. Among the disputes is whether the city can compel St. John to produce records from checking accounts of her immediate family members.

Richard Hirsch, Juanita St. John’s attorney, has argued that is an invasion of privacy.

Hirsch said he could not immediately respond to the commingling allegation, which surfaced in court document’s filed by Guarino Thursday.

Hirsch said he had not discussed the matter with his client, but stressed it does not mean St. John misused public funds. “This could be a commingling of funds that (were) advancements and reimbursements. The question is whether everything washes out at the end and is all accounted for, not where it came from.”

However, Guarino cited a section of the city’s funding contract with the Africa task force that required St. John to maintain a separate account and records for the use of city funds.

Kathy St. John could not be reached for comment. Bradley’s press spokesman, Bill Chandler, declined to comment on the allegation, saying it is “between the city attorney and Juanita’s lawyers.” After checking, Chandler said Bradley and top mayoral aides knew nothing about the alleged commingling of task force funds.

Not in Court

Juanita St. John did not appear in court Thursday.

However, in a telephone interview with The Times last week, she bitterly denied doing anything improper and disputed the city’s charges.

“The task force will owe me money when this is over,” St. John said.

“It was never a question of not” providing records, she said, adding that preparations for her daughter’s recent wedding delayed her response to city auditors’ requests. “I’m getting the (remaining records) together.”

She claimed the amount of city funds not accounted for has been overstated. Tuttle “may not like the way I do my accounting,” she said, but the funds unaccounted for “was never over $100,000.”

She said those funds were spent appropriately on “salaries, travel and just running the office.”