Lewis’ Letters ‘Deceitful,’ Not Illegal, His Attorney Says

An attorney defending Orange County Assemblyman John Lewis against charges of forging Ronald Reagan’s name on campaign letters told an appellate court Wednesday that Lewis wrote “admittedly deceitful letters” but didn’t violate California’s forgery statute.

Lewis, a 36-year-old Republican from Orange, was indicted by a Sacramento County grand jury on charges that in 1986 he defrauded voters by overseeing and approving the mailing of 480,000 letters to voters in six state Assembly districts bearing the unauthorized signature of then-President Reagan endorsing the Republican candidate in each race.

Five of the letters were strictly laudatory endorsements of the GOP candidate, but in one district the letters bearing Reagan’s unauthorized signature asserted that Democratic incumbent Dick Floyd of Hawthorne “chose to give in to the powerful drug industry” on legislation. Floyd was reelected despite the eleventh-hour mailing.

In 40 minutes of oral arguments before a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal, defense attorney Clyde Blackmon and Deputy Atty. Gen. Scott Thorpe sparred over the intent of drafts of the state’s forgery law enacted by the Legislature in 1850, 1872 and 1905.

The key issue that the appellate court must decide is whether California’s forgery statute is limited to cases of monetary or property fraud, or if it can be applied to political mailings.

The great majority of the language of the statute under which Lewis was charged last February describes various kinds of monetary agreements, but its concluding phrases declare that it a felony to falsely sign another person’s name “with intent to prejudice, damage or defraud any person.”

Arguing for dismissal of the charges against Lewis, Blackmon contended that the six campaign letters on which Lewis is accused of forging Reagan’s name “are admittedly deceitful letters, but did they have the capacity to defraud,” because there was no monetary impact on recipients of the letters?

Thorpe countered that while the forgery statute does describe property contracts at length, that doesn’t change the simple meaning of the words of the statute.

“Whether it’s a political context, or any other context, someone cannot sign your name . . . with intent to deceive,” Thorpe said.

Blackmon responded: “Never in the history of that statute has it been used in cases of deceit. There’s always been some monetary right that’s been intruded upon.”

Sacramento Superior Court Judge James Morris rejected Blackmon’s motion to dismiss the charges against Lewis two weeks ago, prompting his appeal.

The Court of Appeal is allowed up to 90 days to issue its ruling, but both Blackmon and Thorpe said they expected a ruling in about three weeks.