Prosecutors Say Carpenter Wanted Donations Before Discussing Bills

Federal prosecutors, outlining their case against state Board of Equalization member Paul Carpenter, charged Monday that the former senator was a ruthless fund-raiser who sometimes refused to talk about legislation with lobbyists unless they steered money to his campaign.

According to the trial memorandum filed by the office of U.S. Atty. David F. Levi, secretly recorded conversations and other evidence demonstrate that Carpenter and his onetime aide, John Shahabian, had a callous view of the legislative process and blatantly used their positions of power to raise money for themselves.

“The thing about this system is it’s foolproof,” Shahabian advised a federal undercover agent in one tape-recorded conversation. “ . . . You have to buy it . . . you have to buy in or you can’t beat it . . . they’ve got all the angles covered. There’s always another tollgate . . . even if you beat them at one point. . . .”

Carpenter is scheduled to go on trial Monday on four felony counts of extortion, racketeering and conspiracy dating from his days as a Democratic state senator from Norwalk. Carpenter has denied any wrongdoing.

Shahabian is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution. The former Carpenter aide began cooperating with the FBI after agents confronted him with the evidence against him.

The Carpenter trial is the second case against an elected state official stemming from the undercover FBI sting investigation of corruption in the state Capitol. The first trial resulted in the conviction in February of former Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier), who is serving a 6 1/2-year sentence at the federal prison camp near Boron.

In 1986, when Carpenter was running for the Board of Equalization, the senator received a total of $20,000 from undercover agent John E. Brennan II. The agent posed as businessman Jack Gordon, a talkative Southerner seeking support for a bill that would help him set up a shrimp importing business near Sacramento.

At one point, Shahabian warned Brennan that he would get little action from the Legislature without making at least a $10,000 “first installment” to Carpenter.

Later, Shahabian extolled the virtues of his boss, saying, “He’s an honest shooter. . . . And he’s the best lobbyist you could have. . . . You can pay another lobbyist a hundred thousand and they couldn’t do for you what he (Carpenter) can do for 10 (thousand dollars).”

Gerald Hinckley, Carpenter’s attorney, has consistently predicted that Carpenter will be found innocent and has charged that the case is built largely around Shahabian’s self-serving statements.

At a meeting with prosecutors last November, Carpenter said he had suspected that the legislation sought by Brennan was part of an FBI undercover investigation. But he said he believed he was doing a “sort of reverse sting” on the FBI by accepting the $20,000 and then not voting for the bill.

“Carpenter stated that he was giving the sponsor of the bill ‘access’ or ‘an ear’ at a particularly busy time in the legislative schedule in exchange for the contribution,” the trial memorandum said.

Prosecutors contend that Carpenter is guilty of extorting a payment simply by accepting the money in exchange for a promise to help.

In five separate incidents unrelated to the sting, prosecutors also charge that Carpenter used his Senate office illegally to solicit campaign contributions from lobbyists and other individuals who came to him seeking his vote.

In each case, the trial memorandum says, Carpenter made it clear he expected donations before he would discuss the legislation in question. In most of the conversations, he relied on computerized records to point out that he had not received the contributions he expected, prosecutors say.

Carpenter received a contribution in only one of the five cases--a $1,000 donation from the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn.

Carpenter told prosecutors that he could not remember most of the meetings, which date back as far as 1980. But in the case of the prison guards’ organization, Carpenter said he recalled meeting with a lobbyist for the group.

“Carpenter admitted that he had a list of his opponent’s campaign contributions and pounded the table with this list,” the trial memorandum said.