Real Estate Figure’s Ties to Officials Investigated : Probe: In a six-hour search of the man’s apartment, authorities sought evidence of illegal payments to Bradley and others. The mayor’s office denies any wrongdoing.

At least a dozen investigators searched the Baldwin Hills apartment of a real estate entrepreneur for six hours two weeks ago and questioned him repeatedly about possible financial dealings with Mayor Tom Bradley and other Los Angeles city officials, according to interviews and documents obtained Wednesday.

The investigators, led by the Los Angeles Police Department, had obtained a search warrant based on information from two anonymous informants who alleged that a number of officials received campaign contributions or other payments in the mid-1980s in exchange for their support for a proposed senior citizens housing project called Sheridan Manor.

A spokesman for Bradley denied Wednesday that the mayor acted improperly in backing the project.

The target of the search warrant was Harold Washington, 69, who has an apartment and office in Baldwin Hills. Washington has been attempting to develop the Sheridan Manor project, which includes two buildings in separate neighborhoods, since the early 1980s. The two informants were former business partners of Washington and both said they did not witness any payment of money to political figures.

The warrant was served in connection with a criminal case filed last October against Washington and others involved in the Sheridan Manor project. They were charged with underpaying 114 construction workers by a total of nearly $400,000.

The case alleged 114 misdemeanor counts against the developer for paying the workers as little as one-fourth the wages required under the CRA contract. According to an affidavit filed in support of the warrant, investigators are also looking into an allegation that one prosecution witness was offered a bribe to change his testimony in the case.

Deputy City Atty. Michael Guarino refused Wednesday to discuss the scope of the investigation. “I believe that when everybody is put under oath, this thing will be sorted out,” he said.

In an interview Wednesday, Washington said two dozen investigators appeared at his apartment at 2 p.m. on Jan. 25 and examined his business and personal records until at least 8 p.m. They seized cardboard cartons of records and made copies of Washington’s computer disks, according to records filed in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

“They came in like it was a narcotics bust,” Washington said. “I never saw that many officers at one time in my life.”

Shawn Conyers, a security guard at Washington’s building, said that when he arrived at 5 p.m., he saw at least nine officers, one of whom displayed an FBI badge. Others wore LAPD wind breakers, Conyers said.

Washington said that while the officers searched his records they peppered him with questions about Bradley, Council President John Ferraro, former Councilman David Cunningham and John Tuite, the departing head of the city Community Redevelopment Agency who recently received a severance package worth more than $1.5 million.

“They asked me what is my connection to Tom Bradley and why did I give him $10,000,” Washington recalled. “They asked, ‘Did Bradley ever assist you in getting this project?’ I told them none whatsoever.”

Washington said he had done nothing improper or illegal. He acknowledged that he has made campaign contributions to Bradley and others. Records show that he has given $22,050 to Bradley since 1984.

Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth would not comment Wednesday on the investigation, saying only, “The affidavit speaks for itself.”

The Sheridan Manor project involved the rehabilitation of two condemned buildings containing 162 units that once were owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and were scheduled to be demolished.

Through the intervention of Bradley and other politicians, the buildings were saved and sold to the CRA. Through competitive bidding, Washington and his partners won the right to rehabilitate the buildings with the help of CRA loans.

Bradley’s spokesman said the mayor “gave no instructions to the CRA in this matter” and there was nothing improper about his support for the project.

Attached to an affidavit in support of the search warrant is a letter Bradley wrote to HUD in 1984 urging then-secretary Samuel Pierce to save the buildings from demolition.

Ferraro said he did not recall the project, which included a building in his district, and said of Washington: “If this guy walked in I don’t think I would know him.”

Ferraro said he checked his campaign records this week and found that Washington once gave him a contribution of $2,500 that was drawn on insufficient funds.

Attempts to reach Cunningham were unsuccessful. The other Sheridan Manor building was in Cunningham’s district.

Both Ferraro and Cunningham initially wanted the buildings demolished, the informants said in the affidavit, which noted that Washington campaigned to persuade them to change their minds.

They claimed that Washington told them that “certain politicians needed to be ‘brought into harmony’ with the project.”

“The goal was to gain councilmanic support now so that when the project to got to their levels there would not be any opposition,” the document said.

Washington was going “to handle the passing of money,” the informants claimed. One of the informants said Ferraro received $20,000 and Murray Kane, a lawyer for the CRA and a former candidate for city attorney, got $1,000.

Tuite, then a private housing consultant, received an undisclosed amount from Washington for his help in urging federal officials to approve the project, according to the affidavit. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.