Ferraro Faults Mayor’s Aides in Attacking Tuttle

The mayor’s office is offering “a weak defense” by attacking City Controller Rick Tuttle for reporting that Mayor Tom Bradley attempted to interfere with an audit of a controversial African task force, Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro said Saturday.

Tuttle “showed a lot of courage and stamina to conduct this investigation and put forth his report,” said Ferraro, who noted he had met with the controller on Friday. “It is not easy to criticize a colleague. I think Tuttle used good judgment. To accuse him of political motives is wrong. Let’s face it, this is not a pleasant thing.”

‘Extremely Inappropriate’

Ferraro, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Bradley in 1985, was responding to charges by Deputy Mayor Michael Gage that the controller’s report was “troubling, unfounded and political on its face.” Tuttle said after a nearly five-month review of the Task Force for Africa/Los Angeles Relations that efforts by Bradley and his staff to “influence” the outcome of the audit were “extremely inappropriate.”

Bradley has denied that he tried to interfere with the audit process.

The audit concluded that the head of the task force, Bradley associate Juanita St. John, owes the city $260,000 in taxpayer funds and that she commingled public and private money in bank accounts. A separate police investigation of the task force is focusing on whether city funds were illegally transferred into the accounts of a real estate investment in which Bradley and St. John are partners, according to sources close to the probe.

On Saturday morning, Ferraro appeared with Bradley at a tree-planting ceremony in Griffith Park. The mayor--who has been under investigation by the city attorney’s office since April for possible conflicts of interest involving his business dealings with associates, including St. John--refused to comment on the controller’s report.

“I’m going to wait another few days until the city attorney’s report is ready,” Bradley said Saturday, clearly disturbed by reporters’ questions. “Then you will hear my comment.”

Bradley spent most the hourlong ceremony cheerfully greeting hikers in the park, posing for photographs and chatting with 24-year-old actress Claire Yartlett, the host of the event who is better known for her role on the nighttime television soap opera “The Colbys.”

The mayor received warm applause when he was introduced to the crowd of more than 100 at the ceremony.

One park visitor who received Bradley’s autograph, Aurelia Singer, said she believes the mayor has done nothing improper. “Juanita St. John, she is the instigator, not our mayor,” Singer said. “I believe he is in the clear and not guilty of anything. I love that man.”

Audit Matters

The reported attempt by Bradley and his staff to influence the controller’s audit occurred in June when the mayor sent one of his top aides, Anton Calleia, to discuss three pending audit matters with Tuttle, the controller said.

According to Tuttle, Calleia demanded that auditors return a letter that disclosed the firing of Bradley’s daughter, Phyllis, as an employee of the task force; withdraw a request that St. John provide her income tax returns, and reverse a decision to disallow part of the cost of a hotel room, charged to the task force account, for St. John and her husband.

Bradley and Calleia later told auditors under oath that they did not attempt in any way to influence the audit. Both said they were only trying to make certain that Tuttle followed city policies on employees’ privacy rights and travel reimbursement. The mayor and his aide have said they do not remember raising the issue of the inquiry into St. John’s tax returns.

Bradley told auditors that he was was trying to protect the city from liability when he dispatched Calleia to retrieve the letter outlining his daughter’s firing.

The mayor served as a board member on the Africa task force, and helped secure $400,000 in city funding for it since 1985.

The mayor’s wife, Ethel, said in an interview Saturday that her daughter, Phyllis, had a leg injury and was looking for work when St. John hired her as an $9-per-hour office secretary in July, 1985. Ethel Bradley said she was uncertain whether St. John hired her daughter as a favor to the mayor. She said her daughter spent many idle hours alone in the task force office.

“Phyllis never liked it,” Ethel Bradley said. “Being a girl in the office all by yourself and no one to do anything with, it bored her. She stayed there longer than she wanted.”

Daughter Questioned

The mayor’s wife said that her daughter has been interviewed by city authorities as part of the task force investigations.

Phyllis Bradley could not be reached for comment. Her mother said she is working as a secretary in Los Angeles, but declined to give further details.

Mrs. Bradley added that she is bitter that her daughter’s past brushes with the law are being publicized again in the wake of the auditor’s report.

“I think it is very unfair to Phyllis,” said Mrs. Bradley. “She is not a public figure. I’m tired of them beating a dead horse to death every time they mention her name. You wouldn’t want that happening to your child, believe me.”

Part of a police investigation of the task force is focusing on whether funds were illegally transferred into accounts of a Riverside real estate investment firm in which St. John and the mayor are partners. Sources said that St. John wrote herself a $5,127 check on the task force account. The endorsement, the sources said, indicates that the check was deposited into the account of Kathy St. John II, the partnership named after St. John’s daughter who works for the mayor’s office.