Isgro Claims He’s ‘Fall Guy’ in MCA Probe : Entertainment: The record promoter has been indicted on a bevy of charges, including racketeering.

The defense lawyer for a Glendale man accused of record industry racketeering asserted Monday that his client was “the fall guy” for a government investigation of MCA Records that had gone awry.

Donald M. Re, the lawyer for Joseph Isgro, made the charge in a hearing on his motion that an indictment against Isgro, 42, be dismissed on the grounds of government misconduct.

The government has denied that it engaged in any misconduct or that there was anything improper about the case against Isgro. In a court filing, two Justice Department officials assert that Isgro’s motion “seems to have been gleaned from newspaper clippings” about the MCA probe and that, in any case, that controversy is irrelevant to the charges against Isgro.

U.S. District Court Judge James M. Ideman said he would hold a full hearing on the motion on May 21.

Isgro, once one of the nation’s leading independent record promoters, was indicted by a federal grand jury last Nov. 30 on a bevy of criminal counts, including racketeering, conspiracy to defraud Columbia Records, making undisclosed “payola” payments to radio stations, mail fraud, filing false tax returns, conspiracy to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to impede the Internal Revenue Service.

He has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail. If convicted of all the charges, he faces 200 years in prison and $1.4 million in fines.

Re has alleged in court documents that the government’s investigation of Isgro stemmed from a squelched investigation of MCA’s relationship to alleged mobster Sal Pisello, who was convicted of tax evasion. Re asserted Tuesday that the government ended the MCA probe for “political reasons” and decided that it had to indict Isgro to justify the wide-reaching investigation.

He asserted that several ranking Justice Department officials, including Robert Brosio, the assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, told Marvin Rudnick, an attorney with the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force here, to halt his investigation of MCA.

Instead, Rudnick was urged to investigate Isgro, according to Re’s brief, which also alleges that Los Angeles Police Department officials supplied information to Rudnick about Isgro. The brief further alleges that some of the LAPD personnel in question had close ties to MCA.

Eventually, Rudnick successfully prosecuted Pisello. However, he was removed from further responsibilities on the case and eventually was fired by the Justice Department. He currently is in private practice in Pasadena.

Much of what Re is alleging has been reported in accounts in various newspapers and on the CBS program “60 Minutes.”

Re has subpoenaed both Rudnick and another former strike force lawyer, Richard Stavin, to testify about the government’s handling of the case. Both were in court Monday and both said they would be back on May 21. In the past, both have been highly critical of the Justice Department’s handling of the record industry probe.

Rudnick did not offer any opinions on Isgro’s guilt or innocence Monday.

Officials of the Justice Department have denied in the past that an investigation of MCA was prematurely suppressed. They have refused to discuss Rudnick’s firing, saying it was a personnel matter. On Monday, Justice Department lawyer William Lynch and Assistant U.S. Atty. Drew Pitt of the Strike Force declined any comment, as did Brosio.

However, Lynch and Pitt have issued a sharp reply to Re’s allegations in legal papers they filed recently. They assert that Isgro’s motion “seems to have been gleaned from newspaper clippings which featured a disgruntled former Justice Department employee who was discharged,” a clear reference to Rudnick.

“The only impropriety suggested . . . is that a former prosecutor was prevented from pursuing an investigation of a corporate entity other than Mr. Isgro,” the government’s reply brief continues. “The government denies that such was the case but, even assuming this was true, it furnishes the defendant, Isgro, with no defense on his charges.”

An MCA spokesperson declined comment, saying, “We are not a party to this litigation.”