FBI Searches Sen. Robbins’ Encino Home

Federal agents armed with a search warrant raided the Encino home of Sen. Alan Robbins on Friday in the latest phase of a continuing investigation of corruption in the state Capitol.

The search, which was conducted by the FBI, is the strongest indication to date that the U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento is pressing ahead with a possible case against Robbins, a veteran Democrat whose business deals have come under investigators’ scrutiny.

Agents at Robbins’ house refused to describe the nature of their search to a Times reporter. But among those present was Jim Wedick, a Sacramento-based agent who has played a central role in the FBI’s political corruption probe since it began more than five years ago. Wedick said he could not comment.

Contacted by phone after the search, Robbins said, “I have been advised that it’s not appropriate to comment on it (the investigation).”

An aide to the lawmaker acknowledged that Robbins was home at the time of the raid, which began in the morning and lasted for a matter of hours.

Several agents were at the lawmaker’s large, Tudor-style home, which has a commanding view of the San Fernando Valley below. One of them held a hand-drawn map and a flashlight, apparently to guide him on his search of the residence.

As reported earlier in The Times, a federal grand jury in Sacramento has been investigating almost every aspect of Robbins’ extensive business dealings and political activities to determine if the state senator abused his office for personal financial gain.

One of the allegations made before a grand jury is that Robbins and California Coastal Commissioner Mark L. Nathanson were part of an elaborate scheme to extort $250,000 from a San Diego hotel developer. Attorneys for both men have denied the allegation.

The search of Robbins’ home required that a judge be persuaded that it would turn up evidence linked to the commission of a crime. The warrant and supporting documents with details of the allegations and the nature of the search have not yet been made public.

A source familiar with the probe said that authorities were looking for financial records, at least some of which involved the San Diego hotel developer, Jack Naiman. Naiman has told investigators that he was put in “a squeeze” after he asked Robbins to help him fight a rival hotel project.

The 47-year-old politician, who has served in the Senate for 17 years, has a long history of being caught up in controversy, only to emerge unscathed.

There is even a long-running dispute over whether he actually lives in the 20th Senate District, where he was handily reelected earlier this month with 59% of the vote. Robbins makes no secret that the house where he lives--the one raided by the FBI--is outside his district. But he is registered to vote at a second residence, the North Hollywood home of his former father-in-law, which is inside the district boundaries.

State law requires that legislators be residents of their districts at the time they run for office, but Robbins has long contended that he is entitled to pick his own residence for voting purposes.

Robbins’ name first came to light as a possible subject of the federal corruption probe in August, 1988, when federal agents searched the Capitol offices of four lawmakers. Although they did not search Robbins’ office at the time of that raid, the FBI did interview Robbins at his Sacramento-area home.

The Capitol search was the first public sign of an FBI sting operation, code-named Brispec (for bribery-special interest), in which agents posing as businessmen tried to win support for bills that would supposedly help them start up a shrimp-processing plant near Sacramento.

As a result of the sting, two former Democratic state senators, Joseph B. Montoya of Whittier and Paul Carpenter of Norwalk, were convicted on political corruption charges earlier this year.

At the time of the Capitol raid, Robbins insisted that he was not a target of the FBI probe. And several sources familiar with the investigation indicated initially that it was unlikely that Robbins would ever be prosecuted.

But tapes released during the Montoya and Carpenter trials showed that Robbins had played a role in passage of the special-interest bills to benefit the FBI’s phony companies.

And according to sources familiar with the probe, the FBI’s investigators received a number of allegations about Robbins’ personal business transactions and, as a result, reopened their files on Robbins.

Jacobs reported from Sacramento and Berger from Encino. Times staff writer Mark Gladstone also contributed to this story.

State Sen. Alan Robbins