CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: ATTORNEY GENERAL : Lungren Blasts Smith’s Handling of Rape, Drug Case

Republican state attorney general candidate Dan Lungren has gone on the offensive in his first TV campaign ad, blasting Democrat Arlo Smith for accepting a plea bargain that resulted in no jail time for an influential San Francisco businessman who had initially been charged with statutory rape, supplying cocaine to minors and attempting to bribe a witness.

Unveiling his ad at a Los Angeles press conference Monday, Lungren said the July sentencing of Donald E. Werby, a partner in the Four Seasons Clift Hotel and Gray Line Inc. bus tours, was “a sad spectacle of prosecutorial failure” on the part of San Francisco Dist. Atty. Smith.

Werby, a former Smith campaign contributor, was sentenced on reduced charges by a San Francisco municipal judge to three years’ probation and ordered to pay a $300,000 fine to a program for runaway youths.

“This is a soft plea bargain . . . it’s disgraceful,” said Lungren. “Arlo Smith put Donald Werby right where the billionaire wanted to be: Back behind the wheel of his gold Porsche, free to drive the streets of San Francisco.”

Smith responded in a written statement, saying that the guilty pleas could be considered “a victory” due to legal problems including conflicting evidence and the “psychologically fragile” nature of the witnesses.

“To publicly claim this disposition unjust or a failure, without ever having prosecuted a single case of this sort--or any sort, for that matter--is an insult to our victims and to the public,” Smith stated.

Werby, saying that he pleaded guilty only to avoid “a year of torture” in court, on Monday called the Lungren ad “absolutely outrageous.”

“Believe me, I have no love for Arlo Smith,” Werby, 63, said. “But for (Lungren) to use this unfortunate incident as a campaign issue without giving me the opportunity (to respond) . . . is very unjust.” Werby also termed Lungren’s characterization of his financial status “a vast exaggeration--like everything else in that case.”

Lungren, a former congressman, said the disposition of the Werby case demonstrates that Smith is weak on crime, regardless of his campaign rhetoric. Earlier this month, the 11-year San Francisco prosecutor said he favored extending the death penalty to cases of rape and kidnaping in which the victim suffers great bodily harm, but is not murdered.

“Here you have instances of statutory rape,” said Lungren, “and he doesn’t even believe you ought to spend a day in jail. He’s tough--as long as it is hypothetical.”

The Werby case has had significant political undercurrents since Werby, his brother, Robert, and their businesses donated $7,500 to Smith’s attorney general campaign during its formative stages early last year.

In the midst of the grand jury investigation, Smith’s campaign manager, Marc Dann, was invited to a meeting with the Werby brothers in which Robert Werby discussed the campaign contributions. Dann later told the grand jury that Robert proceeded to suggest that Smith put the reins on his prosecutor in the case “and allow the Werbys a reasonable amount of time to prepare exculpatory evidence for the grand jury.”

Lungren asserted Monday that to avoid any ethics questions, Smith should have asked the attorney general’s office to prosecute the case. But supervisors in Smith’s office disagreed Monday, noting the Smith campaign eventually returned the 1989 Werby campaign contributions.