Assemblywoman Will Pay $13,200 Fine

Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas) has agreed to pay a $13,200 fine for double-billing both the state treasury and her campaign fund for legislative trips, as well as using political donations to pay for fashion and beauty treatments for her staff, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp announced Friday.

The fine, which Mojonnier must pay to the state out of her personal account, is “a substantial amount of money” and one of the largest extracted from an officeholder for misusing campaign funds, said Alan Ashby, an attorney general’s spokesman.

The largest was levied against Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), who agreed in December to pay $21,075 for using campaign funds for personal travel and such personal expenses as a graduation party.

Despite the stiff penalty--double the $6,618 in travel money involved--Mojonnier said Friday she was “delighted” with the outcome of the attorney general’s probe. She said the investigation showed that the financial irregularities were a result of inadvertent bookkeeping errors.

“The attorney general found that nothing was done intentionally (but) that there were errors made,” Mojonnier said.

But the two-page agreement released by the attorney general’s office Friday makes no mention of Mojonnier’s intentions except to say that the Republican lawmaker signed the settlement without admitting wrong-doing.

Ashby, in a telephone interview, told The Times: “If you spent money on travel, reimburse yourself from your campaign fund and then the state reimburses you for the same travel and you pocket the money, I find it difficult to believe that any intelligent person in our society would not perceive that as wrong.”

The terms of the settlement between Mojonnier and the attorney general bar the state from pressing criminal charges.

The attorney general’s office initiated the investigation after newspaper stories last summer reported the apparent double-dipping on trips and the use of $845 in political funds on beauty and fashion services for five female employees of Mojonnier’s San Diego district office. The services consisted of individual sessions with a fashion consultant and make-over treatment at a beauty parlor.

The northern San Diego County lawmaker--a member of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, a powerful panel that helps shape the state budget--said she overlooked the double-billings for a variety of reasons, including the fact that she was switching accountants last year.

Another factor, she said, was her divorce, which has yet to be finalized. “My husband had been handling all the personal affairs when I was in office, and because of the divorce situation, that no longer occurred,” she said.