Bradley Predicts Grand Jury Won’t Indict Him : City Hall: Mayor, lawyers deny that he is guilty of any criminal acts and criticize federal official’s leaks to press.

Declaring, “I haven’t done anything wrong,” Mayor Tom Bradley called Thursday for a speedy conclusion to a federal grand jury investigation of his personal finances and business ties and predicted that he will not be charged with any criminal misconduct.

“I’m the best witness there is as to whether or not there was any wrongdoing, any impropriety whatsoever,” Bradley said. “I’ll tell you this. There wasn’t. There hasn’t been. That’s the reason I’m so confident at the outcome of this inquiry and that I will be exonerated.”

Bradley made his comments in an interview with The Times. The mayor declined to discuss any details of the grand jury inquiry or the personal investments under scrutiny. His remarks were aimed primarily at rebutting statements by a federal official close to the case when the investigation was first disclosed last month.

The federal official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said he did not yet know if there was “criminality or just bad judgment” involved in Bradley’s business dealings with banks and brokerage firms, but also said:

“It’s the old saying, ‘Where there’s smoke there’s fire,’ and there is heavy smoke here. . . . There’s certainly enough to go through the grand jury process. It’s a real thing.”

Describing themselves as outraged at the comments, particularly the reference to “heavy smoke” in connection with the grand jury investigation, Bradley’s lawyers first appealed to the U.S. attorney’s office to launch a hunt for the unidentified official, then persuaded Bradley to speak publicly.

“Heavy smoke means they have some evidence that there has been some illegal conduct, and it’s just not true,” Bradley said. “It certainly does erode my reputation when the public reads day after day this kind of irresponsible speculation. How are they to know? They don’t have a legal background. They don’t know how the grand jury system works. That is the thing that is most troubling to me.”

Disclosure of the grand jury investigation came two weeks after a report by City Atty. James K. Hahn that found insufficient evidence to prosecute Bradley on conflict-of-interest charges. At that time, Bradley said he considered the various issues of alleged wrongdoing to be resolved and said the city should return to normal.

Bradley said Thursday that the disclosure of the grand jury investigation has not interfered with the running of the city, but said he hopes the probe will be concluded “as expeditiously as possible” to prevent continuing erosion in the public’s confidence of him.

“It doesn’t distract from the duties of my office. I’ve been doing them,” Bradley said. “The thing that has preserved my mental balance has been the fact that I have known from the outset that I didn’t do anything that was illegal. Secondly, I have had expressions from so many people, from every element of this city and beyond, saying they have faith and confidence in me, and they don’t think I have done anything wrong.

Joining Bradley in Thursday’s one-hour interview were his press secretary, Bill Chandler, and two attorneys representing the mayor in the federal investigation--Daniel Fogel, a longtime friend and legal adviser, and Stephen D. Miller, one of the premier white-collar criminal defense lawyers on the West Coast.

Frequently blocking Bradley from making any comments about the case itself and declining to do so themselves, Fogel and Miller said they had decided to speak out only because of the “inflammatory” nature of the comments from anonymous federal sources.

“Dan (Fogel) and I have made it clear to the U.S. attorney’s office that under the circumstances of this particular inquiry that matters should be decided as quickly as possible in order to put this behind the mayor,” Miller said.

“I might say at this point that the issuance of subpoenaes by a grand jury and even the calling of witnesses before a grand jury often means nothing,” Miller added. “Often, after a complete investigation, no action whatever is taken. Dan and I believe that after the government completes its investigation that no action will be taken in this case.”

While The Times learned that the Justice Department’s Office of Public Integrity opened an investigation of its own into the grand jury leaks, federal officials declined to add any additional information about the grand jury. U.S. Atty. Gary A. Feese said he had no comment on the case.

Several former U.S. prosecutors and leading criminal defense lawyers raised questions, however, about the government’s chances of indicting Bradley on any criminal charges in connection with any of his controversial business dealings, from his service as an adviser to Far East National Bank to investments linked to Columbia Savings & Loan Assn. and Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Attorney Jan Lawrence Hanzlik, who defended Orange County fireworks magnate W. Patrick Moriarty in the biggest California political corruption case in recent years, said part of the government’s problem if it tries to prove any criminal action by Bradley in any of his business dealings will be establishing “intent” to violate his public trust.

“It’s impossible to tell how this will come out,” Hanzlik said. “One thing I can say is that the U.S. attorney’s office doesn’t undertake this kind of investigation just out of curiousity. They are too short-handed for that.”

During the Moriarty case, which resulted in the conviction of a dozen politicians and businessmen in connection with bribe-taking and other crimes, one target of a continuing federal grand jury was former Assembly Majority Leader Mike Roos, who was never indicted.

“Roos is a good example of a politician who was very much a target of federal investigators,” said one former prosecutor, who asked not to be identified. “But they could not put together sufficient evidence to prosecute, so they didn’t.”

While lawyers interviewed by The Times were divided on whether there is a likelihood that Bradley runs a serious chance of being indicted, most said it is obvious that both the federal grand jury and Bradley’s defense counsel are taking the grand jury inquiry seriously.

Miller, widely viewed as one of the top half-dozen white-collar criminal defense lawyers in Los Angeles, was brought into the case by Fogel to handle negotiations with the U.S. attorney’s office and the U.S. Justice Department.

The attorney, who has won major cases in the past against the government on behalf of Sears and General Dynamics, would not discuss how he intends to try to persuade prosecutors that Bradley should not be indicted.

In the past, however, Miller’s typical approach in major cases has been to prepare his own version of a grand jury, interviewing witnesses and then presenting his side of the case to the people who ultimately decide whether the government should indict or take no action.

“Steve’s specialty is not getting people indicted,” one colleague said. “Bradley couldn’t have a better lawyer in this case. The U.S. attorney will listen to him because he has a reputation for exceptional honesty and he is a former prosecutor, too. Most importantly, they know he can try a case and win in the courtroom if they don’t have the goods.”

While the characters are different, there are some parallels between the Bradley grand jury investigation and another grand jury probe in Los Angeles 14 years ago.

Attorney Stanley I. Greenberg, a federal prosecutor in the early 1970s, told The Times this week that he led a federal investigation into former Mayor Sam Yorty’s approval of a controversial land swap in which Occidental Petroleum gave land to the city in exchange for drilling rights in Pacific Palisades.

The government investigated whether Yorty profited from insider trading when he purchased Occidental stock, Greenberg said.

“We used a grand jury then, too,” Greenberg said. “We spent about four months on the case, then decided it was going nowhere. It turned out Yorty lost money on most of his investments. There just wasn’t any evidence against him.”

Bradley, Yorty’s opponent for mayor at the time, used the Occidental land swap as a campaign issue against Yorty. But he said Thursday that he never knew the controversy had ever gone to a grand jury.

“I wasn’t aware of that,” Bradley said.

EXCERPTS OF BRADLEY INTERVIEW

Question: Now that the grand jury probe has surfaced, what are your thoughts and hopes?

Bradley: I have great confidence and faith in my legal counsel. I have asked them to cooperate fully with the the Justice Department and to do everything within their power to expedite the completion of this inquiry, because I have great faith and great confidence that when this inquiry is finished, it is going to show exactly what I have been saying all along: “I have not done anything officially or in my personal conduct that would merit or warrant the kind of speculation which has occurred in the press and I haven’t done anything that is wrong.”

Q: Mayor, after (the city attorney’s report) was over, you said, “I am glad this is over with and let’s get on with business.” The fact that (the) grand jury has become part of a running story, how much does that throw you off from getting back to business?

Bradley: It doesn’t detract from the duties of my office. I’ve been doing them. It certainly does erode my reputation when the public reads day after day this kind of irresponsible speculation. How are they to know? How are they to make a judgment on the veracity of these articles that appear? They don’t have a legal background. They don’t know how the grand jury system works. That is the thing that is most troubling to me.

Q: You symbolized corruption-free Los Angeles. Now you are hit with all this stuff. How do you really feel?

Bradley: The thing that has preserved my mental balance has been the fact that I have known from the outset that I didn’t do anything that was illegal. Secondly, I have had expressions from so many people, from every element of this city and beyond, saying they have faith and confidence in me and they don’t think I have done anything wrong.

Q: How soon would you like to see it resolved?

Bradley: Yesterday.