Hakim’s Misdemeanor Plea Accepted by Court : Iran-Contra: Judge Gesell at first rejects an agreement as ‘a charade.’ The arms dealer is expected to assist the continuing inquiry.

Iran-Contra figure Albert A. Hakim pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge, admitting that he had provided $13,800 from a secret Panamanian bank account to build a security fence at the home of former White House aide Oliver L. North.

U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell, who presided at North’s trial earlier this year, accepted Hakim’s plea only after prosecutors modified it to meet Gesell’s objections that Hakim was not admitting the specific acts he had committed.

Gesell acidly rejected the plea agreement as originally offered, calling it “15 pages of verbiage . . . a charade . . . a bunch of nonsense.”

But after an hourlong recess, Gesell reconvened court and approved a redone plea bargain that omitted some of the verbiage to which he had objected. The judge also elicited a statement from the Iranian-born Hakim that he drew funds from an account called Lake Resources Inc., at the behest of Richard V. Secord.

Secord, a retired Air Force major general and close friend of North’s, pleaded guilty Nov. 8 to one felony count of making a false statement under oath to congressional investigators in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Under terms of the settlement, Hakim avoided a trial and agreed that he would cooperate with federal prosecutors in their continuing investigation and “make certain factual statements” about his involvement in the scandal.

Hakim could receive a maximum punishment of a year in prison and a fine of $100,000. The judge set sentencing for Feb. 1.

Sources familiar with the case said Hakim was allowed to plead to a misdemeanor out of recognition that he had lesser culpability than Secord and would have gone to trial on far fewer charges than Secord.

Secord faced 12 separate charges and Hakim faced five. But three of the charges against Hakim, involving conspiracy and theft of government property, were expected to be dropped because a trial would reveal classified information.

Secord, in assisting North in selling U.S. arms to Iran and using some of the proceeds to help Nicaraguan rebel forces, enlisted Hakim for his expertise in international banking. Both private businessmen, Secord and Hakim were partners in a company called Stanford Technology Trading Corp. and realized millions of dollars in profits from their work as middlemen in Iran-Contra, according to government filings.

Secord has said that he first met Hakim in Tehran in the 1970s when Secord was chief of the U.S. Air Force mission there. Hakim was a businessman with close friends among Iranian government officials.

Gesell said that he would allow Hakim to remain free pending sentencing and to continue to travel abroad on condition that he keep in touch with his Washington attorney and with the U.S. Probation Office.

In a related matter, Lake Resources admitted that it had stolen government property by diverting Iranian arms sales profits to Nicaragua’s rebels. But Gesell observed wryly that he “cannot put a corporation in jail” and that it may have too few assets to pay a heavy fine. But Stuart Abrams, an associate independent counsel, said the guilty plea establishes the principle that the diversion of money to the Contras violated U.S. law.

In a separate development Tuesday, independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh said the Justice Department may argue in a federal court hearing today that certain classified documents not be used in the trial of another Iran-Contra figure, Joseph F. Fernandez, former CIA station chief in Costa Rica. Such an action could lead U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton to dismiss all or part of the charges against Fernandez.

Fernandez is accused of lying about his role in North’s secret efforts to arm the Contras during a congressional ban on all U.S. military assistance to the rebels.

In another development, U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene gave the Justice Department and attorneys for former President Ronald Reagan the two-week extension they had requested for consideration of a subpoena for Reagan’s diaries and other personal papers for the trial of John M. Poindexter, Reagan’s former national security adviser.