Asner Takes Stand Against Montoya : Corruption trial: Former Screen Actors Guild president testifies that state senator wanted to know what the guild was going to do for him.

Actor Ed Asner, a former president of the Screen Actors Guild, testified Monday that state Sen. Joseph B. Montoya once asked for support in exchange for a vote on legislation affecting actors and recording artists.

“He wanted to know what we were going to do for him,” Asner told a federal jury during Montoya’s political corruption trial. “I thought he was asking for a quid pro quo. . . . We do something for him and he’d do something for us, such as vote on the bill.”

Later in the day, former Montoya aide Karen Frick testified that the 50-year-old lawmaker once put a “price tag” of $5,000 to carry two bills that would help foreign medical schools and their graduates seeking licenses in California.

And veteran lobbyist Dennis Carpenter, who once was a senator from Orange County, told the court that Montoya repeatedly asked him to obtain an honorarium from a recycling company that was affected by a Montoya bill.

Asner, who had come to the state Capitol to lobby against a bill, said he was “angry and shocked” by Montoya’s request for support during a private meeting in the senator’s office.

But on cross-examination, Asner acknowledged that Montoya never used the word “money” in asking for assistance. And the actor said his recollection of many of the details of his conversation with Montoya is now “fuzzy.”

In an attempt to undercut Asner’s testimony, the defense produced a photograph of a smiling Asner and Montoya with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders. Asner agreed that the picture was taken immediately after his meeting with Montoya.

Asner’s account of the meeting, however, was corroborated by George Miller, a lobbyist for the Assn. of Talent Agents, who also was present. Miller told the jury he recalled Montoya saying, “You guys haven’t done anything for me, why should I do anything for you?”

Asner, star of television’s “Lou Grant” and the “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” testified that he came to Sacramento in May, 1985, to speak against legislation designed to extend the maximum length of contracts between recording companies and artists to 10 years. The Screen Actors Guild, which includes many performing artists among its members, opposed the bill, arguing that the 10-year period was too long.

Miller, who was advising Asner on the bill, had identified Montoya as a swing vote at an upcoming hearing of the Senate Industrial Relations Committee.

On the morning of the hearing, Asner and Miller went to see Montoya in the senator’s office. As the actor attempted to explain the guild’s position, he testified, Montoya began asking what backing he had received from the actors’ union.

“The Screen Actors Guild had never done anything for him, what were they going to do for him,” Asner recalled the senator saying. “He seemed to be somewhat agitated that we had never done anything for him.”

Both Asner and Miller testified that they interpreted Montoya’s statement as a request for money and the conversation quickly grew heated.

Miller, who took the witness stand after Asner, testified that the veteran actor “made a timeout gesture and said, ‘You mean I have to pay for a vote?’ ”

At one point in the conversation, Miller said, “I remember Mr. Asner commenting on the (legislative) system. As I remember, he said it stunk.”

Asner explained that he agreed to the impromptu photo session in the hope it might win Montoya’s support for the guild’s position. “Perhaps out of the goodness of his heart, my making a picture with someone would sway his vote,” Asner told the jury.

Montoya, however, voted for the bill and against Asner. The measure by Sen. Ralph C. Dills (D-Gardena) later passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Bruce Kelton, Asner acknowledged he had difficulty remembering some details of the meeting but clearly recalled how angry he was at Montoya’s request.

“Functions, dates, people are all fuzzy,” Asner said. “I only remember emotions.”

“I’m sure you remember your lines,” Kelton responded.

“Only when I have too,” Asner said.

Kelton also questioned whether Montoya had explained that he was forced to vote for the bill because it had the backing of powerful Democratic leaders.

But Asner said he did not recall Montoya ever making such a statement. “ ‘What was the guild going to do for him’ seemed to be the exact language,” Asner said. “ ‘What’s the guild going to do for me?’ ”

Miller testified that once they arrived at the committee meeting room, Montoya handed Asner a business card with the handwritten message, “Ed, hope there’s no hard feelings. Love you, Joe.”

Former Senate aide Frick said the committee Montoya chaired had a reputation as “a juice committee”--one that generated large campaign contributions for its members.

Frick said she and another consultant to Montoya’s Senate Business and Professions Committee were approached by a lobbyist representing foreign medical schools. The lobbyist wanted Montoya to sponsor bills making it easier for foreign graduates to be licensed to practice in California, she said.

When the aides took the request to Montoya, according to Frick, “he said he would do that but that there was a price to pay for the bills. . . . I recall a $5,000 figure.” Frick testified that Montoya emphasized that she and the other aide were expected to convey the request to the medical schools’ lobbyist.

Frick said that on 10 or more occasions she remembered Montoya saying that “people have to pay their dues” or “pay up” if they expected his support in the Legislature.

After working for Montoya for two years, Frick said, she was fired. Her job was taken by Amiel A. Jaramillo, who had earlier made it clear to her that “he was going to be taking an aggressive role in raising campaign contributions.” She said Jaramillo--who has been charged with four counts of political corruption in a related case--urged the staff to “kick ass and get people to pay their dues to Joe.”

Lobbyist Carpenter said he had urged his client, Allan Co., not to pay honorariums to legislators. But Carpenter said that Montoya raised the issue “five or six times” in a matter of only a few weeks. Finally, when Allan Co. executives agreed to pay Montoya $2,000 for speaking to a recycling organization, Carpenter said it was “all right with me.”

But Carpenter said the speech was canceled in August, 1988, when the FBI raided the offices of several legislators, including Montoya, and the senator never received the $2,000.