St. John is Scapegoat, Says Attorney as Trial Opens

An attorney for Juanita St. John, the business partner of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley accused of stealing $180,000 from a city-funded African trade task force, said Tuesday that St. John had become a political scapegoat for problems surrounding Bradley’s financial affairs.

Attorney Richard G. Hirsch said the decision to prosecute St. John for violating a subpoena for records involving the money came after “the press had been hounding” Bradley, City Controller Rick Tuttle and City Atty. James K. Hahn about the task force.

“The court must consider . . . what the atmosphere was at City Hall at this particular time, and weigh the actions of the controller in the context of the political pressures, which we believe overrode good legal judgment in this case,” Hirsch said during his opening argument at St. John’s Municipal Court trial in downtown Los Angeles.

St. John, executive director of the Task Force for Africa/Los Angeles Relations, faces one misdemeanor charge for failing to honor a subpoena issued last July by Tuttle as part of an audit of city grants given to the Bradley-backed trade group. St. John has refused to turn over the financial records requested by Tuttle, arguing, among other things, that the request violates her right to privacy. If convicted, St. John could be sentenced to six months in County Jail and fined $1,000.

“The politics which were going on in City Hall . . . made Mrs. St. John a pawn in a chess game,” said Hirsch, adding that Judge J. Stephen Czuleger “has the ability to make a checkmate in this case, which is to find that there was not a violation of the law but merely an abuse of political power.”

Deputy City Atty. Michael Guarino, who is prosecuting the case, dismissed Hirsch’s allegations during a court recess.

“There are no politics involved whatsoever,” Guarino said. “These are records that are required to be kept by every grantee. There has never been a grantee in the history of the city who has ever said, ‘I keep these records, not on behalf of the city, but on behalf of myself, and I am not going to turn them over.’ ”

Last month, the district attorney’s office charged St. John with grand theft in connection with her activities as head of the task force. She also was charged with stealing $5,000 from a UCLA-based anti-genocide organization, and filing false state tax returns in 1985, 1986 and 1987. She has been free on $10,000 bail.