Brookins Says He Did Nothing Wrong on Loans

Bishop H.H. Brookins on Saturday disputed the findings of city investigators that he used $336,000 in federal poverty funds to renovate a dilapidated building that he secretly owned in Southwest Los Angeles.

In a telephone interview from Virginia, Brookins said that the office complex initially was acquired by a legitimate organization of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, even though the church company named in county property records lists the bishop as the sole corporate officer and was never incorporated in California.

“The property was in the name of the Southern California Conference AME Church,” Brookins said. “It does exist. (Whether) it is incorporated, I don’t know.”

Loan documents signed by Brookins stated that his church company was legally incorporated in California, but the secretary of state said there is no record of such an entity.

Los Angeles City Council members, angry that public funds may have been misused, said Saturday that they will conduct an inquiry this week into controversial city loans used to renovate the office complex.

Councilman Robert Farrell said he will hold a public hearing Monday into the loans totaling $336,000 and into an education program formerly headed by Brookins that has received more than $500,000 in city funds since 1983.

“My basic question is what’s going on? How come we didn’t know about it earlier?” Farrell asked.

Brookins, a civil rights leader and political mentor to Mayor Tom Bradley, said he will pay back the city any money he may owe. But he insisted that he has done nothing improper.

“I know everything was done above board and signed off by the city,” Brookins said. “That’s why I’m not shaking in my boots right now.”

Brookins said the property was donated to the African Methodist Episcopal Church and later, when program funds dried up, the church transferred the complex to him at no cost. He said the African Methodist Episcopal Church can have it back by paying him about $900,000 that he owes on the property.

“How am I to get my money back I put in all those years,” asked Brookins, who said he personally has lost more than $100,000 since taking over the property from the AME church. “If I could make some money off of it, I’d be delighted.”

The Times reported Saturday that Brookins, through a non-existent church corporation, received the $336,000 loan of federal funds through the city’s Community Development Department to renovate a run-down Crenshaw Boulevard complex for a jobs and education program. Later, the city program was shifted to a dilapidated office next door, while the refurbished building was leased out for $10,000 per month. It now is worth about $1 million, based on loan records.

Brookins called the article “unfair” and said it “was as far from the truth as East is from West.”

Brookins served as AME bishop in Los Angeles between 1976 and 1984 and is now head of the church in the Washington area.

During a nearly two-year investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, investigators learned that Brookins had used $30,000 of the construction loan to pay “personal obligations,” according to investigative reports. But the case was dropped last year because the statute of limitations for fraud and embezzlement had run out, according to prosecutors.

Brookins said that he could not recall what happened to the $30,000, but denied committing embezzlement. “I’ve never taken a dime from nobody to do nothing,” he said. “That is not my nature, my makeup or my history.”

The city last week opened an investigation into more than $7,000 per year in rent payments that went to a Brookins company through a city-funded, nonprofit education program the bishop headed. Such interlocking financial arrangements are prohibited under city contracts, officials said.

After inquiries by The Times, the special investigations unit of the city’s Community Development Department opened the inquiry and the city may attempt to recover the rent money, according to Steve Porter, assistant general manager of the investigations unit.

Officials at the city’s Community Development Department who processed the loan back in 1982 were responsible for making sure the federal subsidies were properly handled, Brookins said.

“They approved it up front,” Brookins said. “They should have known what they were doing.”

When Brookins ran into legal and financial problems surrounding the loan, two top city administrators, Harreld Adams and Doug Ford, said Bradley’s longtime special assistant, Bill Elkins, asked them to help waive about $47,000 in back interest payments and prevent the problems from being disclosed to the City Council. The administrators said Elkins indicated that he was acting on behalf of Bradley.

Elkins denied the allegations. And a Bradley spokesman insisted that the mayor had not authorized intervention by Elkins and only learned of the controversy after the city forgave the back interest and the loan was repaid in May, 1988.

Brookins said Saturday that he did not discuss the loan with the mayor. “I used my personal relationship with Elkins, not Bradley,” he said.

Brookins said he only asked Elkins to hold up repayment on the loan until the bishop could find a bank to refinance the property. Elkins replied, “I’ll see what I can do; I’ll ask about it,” according to Brookins.

“I never asked him to go and lean on somebody and do special favors for me,” Brookins said.

Elkins could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said Saturday that Bradley is “understandably concerned” about the Times report and has sent a “strongly worded” memo to his staff Friday admonishing them not to use his name “without (his) clear and express permission.”

Farrell, whose committee oversees community grants, said he first learned of the problems last week, in the wake of inquiries by The Times. “I’m just surprised at what’s coming forward,” he said.

San Fernando Valley Councilman Joel Wachs, who contributed about $60,000 in funds from his district to the Brookins building renovation project, called the disclosures “really mind-boggling” and called for a “full investigation to find out what the heck is going on.”

“The impression always was the money was going to the program, not individuals,” he said.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said he was “disappointed and really angered . . . that public money was used in this way for apparent personal purposes and that city employees have so bent to pressure and manipulation.”

“I’m heartsick,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus. “I’m appalled by the favoritism. . . . I’m angry, and I mean angry, that the mayor is pointing the finger at the council (on ethics reform) when he got us in that mess.”