FBI Videotape Shows Montoya Accepting Check

Sen. Joseph B. Montoya accepted a $3,000 check from an undercover FBI agent, stuck it in his shirt pocket and then joked that the amount was really $30,000, in a secret videotape shown in federal court Tuesday.

At a breakfast meeting punctuated by nasty remarks about several of his colleagues, Montoya took the money from a man he thought was a carousing Southern businessman, but who later turned out to be FBI Agent George Murray.

As Montoya’s trial on political corruption charges entered its second month, federal informant John Shahabian, who set up the $3,000 payment for Montoya, testified that he also made arrangements to pay three other legislators for their votes.

The veteran Senate staff member told a federal court jury that Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier) and then-Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress) accepted payments ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 from undercover agents. Like Montoya, the lawmakers agreed to support legislation benefiting a dummy shrimp importing company set up by the FBI, Shahabian said.

Nolan, Hill and Carpenter remain under investigation by federal agents but have not been charged with any crime. Montoya is on trial on 12 counts of extortion, racketeering, bribery and money-laundering stemming from a federal undercover sting operation that began four years ago.

Shahabian said he was caught in the federal sting operation in 1986 when he negotiated a payment of $20,000 in campaign contributions from a federal undercover agent. The money was supposed to go to several senators, Shahabian said, but Carpenter--Shahabian’s boss at the time--decided that he would “take it all.”

Though there had been related testimony previously, the 1988 videotape played for the jury showed for the first time how Montoya accepted the $3,000 check for simply attending a breakfast with Shahabian and Murray. Montoya, a Whittier Democrat, later reported the payment as an “honorarium.”

Murray posed as Georgia businessman George Miller, a married man who had stayed up late the night before drinking champagne with a “lady.”

The scene with Montoya was captured on videotape by a female agent sitting at the next table with a camera concealed in her purse.

For most of the breakfast at a restaurant near the Capitol, the 50-year-old legislator ate fruit and yogurt with granola and made small talk about earthquakes, the upcoming Democratic presidential convention and his frequent trips to Europe and Asia.

At one point in the conversation Montoya described Sen. Rose Ann Vuich (D-Dinuba) as a “royal pain in the ass,” saying she frequently slowed meetings of the committee she chairs, the Senate Banking and Commerce Committee.

Later, Montoya briefly discussed the difficulty of getting legislation for the shrimp company out of Vuich’s committee several days earlier because of the hostile questions she began asking.

Envelope Handed Over

Toward the end of the breakfast, Murray pulled an envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to Montoya, who put it into his shirt pocket without looking inside.

Then, in an apparent effort to get Montoya to acknowledge the payment on the tape, Murray joked that he might have written the check for just $3, because he had been drinking the night before.

The senator took the check out of his pocket and joked, “No, it’s 30,000, which is all right.”

A moment later, Montoya promised to be on the Senate floor the next day when the shrimp company legislation was scheduled for a vote.

“I’ll be there,” the senator said.

Perhaps even more revealing than the videotape was Shahabian’s testimony about the three elected officials who are under investigation but have not been charged as a result of the federal investigation.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Michael Sands, Shahabian said that after he began cooperating with federal agents, he arranged for $15,000 in payments to various legislators who agreed to support the shrimp company legislation.

That included $7,500 in campaign contributions to Nolan, who was then the Assembly Republican leader, Shahabian told the jury. He also said he arranged for a $5,000 honorarium to Hill at a meeting similar to the breakfast meeting with Montoya. In a boost to the bill, Hill had agreed to become a co-author of the measure, Shahabian said.

The Senate aide was first trapped in the sting himself when he was working for Carpenter.

Shahabian told the jury that he was contacted by an old acquaintance, Marv Levin, who was working for a real estate developer near the Capitol. Levin introduced Shahabian to a man going by the name of Jack Gordon, who said he was attempting to get the state’s help in setting up a shrimp-processing plant in the Sacramento area. Gordon, it later turned out, was an undercover FBI agent who preceded Murray in the sting.

After meeting Shahabian, Gordon asked for help in winning passage of legislation and asked how much it would cost. Shahabian told him it would take $20,000--a figure he testified Tuesday that “he just picked out of the air.”

Shahabian said he suggested that $5,000 go to Carpenter, another $5,000 go to Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), $5,000 more to the Senate Democratic Caucus chaired by Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco) and another $5,000 be held in reserve for state Treasurer Jesse M. Unruh, whose office had indicated that it would oppose the shrimp company bill.

Eventually, Shahabian took the proposal to Carpenter, who was running a successful campaign that year for the State Board of Equalization.

“At that time, he (Carpenter) decided he would take it all,” Shahabian said.

In order to help the bill win passage, Shahabian testified, Carpenter agreed to work behind the scenes to get the bill out of a committee where it appeared to be blocked. Shahabian said he gave two checks totaling $15,000 to Carpenter. He also testified that Carpenter later took another $5,000 directly from Gordon.

Governor Tipped Off

Eventually, Shahabian received $7,500 from Carpenter for working on his campaign. The shrimp bill passed the Legislature in 1986 and was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian, who had been tipped off by FBI agents.

In 1987, Shahabian got a call from Levin, who invited him to a meeting regarding the shrimp company’s plans. When the Senate staffer walked in, he saw enlarged pictures of himself and heard tape recordings of his conversations with undercover agents.

Frightened by the prospect of going to prison, Shahabian agreed to cooperate with federal agents in exchange for immunity from federal prosecution. He assumed his new duties the next day when, armed with a hidden tape recorder, he met with Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) to get his advice on how to win passage of a second bill in 1988.

Shahabian testified that Robbins told him it would take $40,000 in contributions to members of the Senate to win passage of the bill.

At one point, Shahabian said, Robbins agreed to sponsor the bill in the Senate.

“He said he wouldn’t charge as much as Carpenter,” Shahabian recalled.

Ultimately, however, Robbins turned down offers of money from Shahabian saying, “I don’t need to be taken care of on every bill that comes through.”