Ruling Could Help Carpenter, Montoya

Attorneys for former state senators Paul Carpenter and Joseph B. Montoya predicted Friday that their clients’ convictions on federal public corruption charges would be overturned on appeal because of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion this week.

However, prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office here said they will continue to fight to uphold the verdicts against the two men and that an ongoing probe of corruption in the state Capitol will proceed.

In any event, federal sources familiar with the Supreme Court ruling say it is likely to make prosecutions of politicians much more difficult in the future.

The justices on Thursday overturned the conviction of a West Virginia legislator, Robert L. McCormick, who had been found guilty of extortion for accepting a $900 campaign contribution from foreign medical school graduates. McCormick sponsored a bill the graduates were seeking that would allow them to practice medicine while preparing for state licensing exams.

A majority of the high court concluded that the federal anti-extortion statute required that prosecutors show that there is “an explicit promise or undertaking by the official to perform or not to perform an official act” in exchange for the campaign contribution to justify a conviction.

Carpenter and Montoya were separately convicted under that extortion statute for taking payments in exchange for using their offices to help their benefactors. Both have appealed their convictions. The two argue that federal prosecutors failed to show that they had ever demanded payments in exchange for their votes or other official action.

Said Montoya’s attorney, Jan Lawrence Handzlick: “The Supreme Court’s decision in McCormick recognizes political realities. Sen. Montoya’s conviction should be reversed. Extortion requires something more than receipt of voluntary campaign contributions.”

Carpenter’s attorney, Merrick S. Rayle, called the ruling “a total and complete vindication of Mr. Carpenter’s position, because from Day One his entire defense was that the political donations were not the subject of any quid pro quo and therefore are entirely lawful and entirely legal.”

A former Democratic state senator from Norwalk, Carpenter was elected to the state Board of Equalization in 1986.

Last September, Carpenter was convicted of four counts of racketeering, extortion and conspiracy for using his office as senator to extract campaign contributions from lobbyists and an undercover FBI agent masquerading as a Southern businessman.

Montoya, a Democrat from Whittier, was convicted in February, 1990, on seven counts of using his office for personal gain. He began serving his 6 1/2-year sentence last summer.