D.A., County Investigate Spending by Cash-Strapped Municipal Court

A number of expenses at South Bay Municipal Court, including a $4,600 Moscow trip for a law clerk and a series of seminars costing $8,400 for an administrator, have prompted a criminal investigation.

The district attorney’s special investigations division and the county Chief Administrative Office began the probe when an anonymous tipster reported that the South Bay court--which is expected to incur a $2.5 million shortfall on top of its $3.5 million budget this year--was supplementing its budget by dipping into the county’s mandatory expense fund.

That $55-million fund, which is shared by the county’s 24 municipal courts, is intended to cover such indispensable expenses as court-appointed attorneys, expert witnesses and interpreters, said county administrator Michael J. Henry, who oversees the county’s justice services.

Until the audit and investigation are complete, Henry said, all future South Bay charges against the fund must be accompanied by a judge’s order.

According to county documents, many of the expenses being investigated occurred over a two-year period and were approved by the South Bay court’s assistant administrator, Mark Lomax, who officials said is one of the subjects of the criminal investigation.

The assistant administrator, who has worked at the court in Torrance for almost five years, signed purchase orders totaling $8,400 for his own trips to several legal and humanities seminars, county documents indicate.

Lomax, who declined to be interviewed, said in a statement that he had done nothing wrong. He is the brother of Melanie Lomax, acting president of the Los Angeles Police Commission.

“All expenses approved by me were for the use and benefit of the court and were consistent with the court’s strategy for dealing with the county’s willful failure to provide funding adequate for the efficient operation of the court,” said the one-page statement.

Lomax said other county court units frequently charge the cost of staff salaries, county cars, furniture and office supplies to the mandatory expense fund.

Auditors investigating the South Bay court’s use of the mandatory expense fund have reported a number of unusual items, including travel expenses, computer and furniture purchases, a $1,000 donation to a state courts association, and construction costs for a guard counter and a parking garage, Henry said.

“While certain flagrant expenditures were identified right off the bat, we plan to continue until we have looked at every single expenditure,” Henry said. “The audit will probably move to other municipal courts as well . . . but we don’t expect to find this flagrant kind of expenditure elsewhere.”

South Bay Court Administrator Christopher Crawford, who said the South Bay’s $3.5-million operating budget is “woefully” inadequate for the court’s workload, also released a written statement defending the items charged to the mandatory expense budget.

“All charges made against this fund by court staff were for legitimate purposes and would not have been questioned had they been charged to the court’s normal operating accounts,” Crawford said in his statement.

However, in a subsequent interview, Crawford acknowledged that he had thought the law clerk who took the $4,651 Moscow trip had paid for it herself. She was not identified in the documents.

“That is a highly questionable charge, which is the subject of an internal and external investigation,” said Crawford. The court administrator said he believed approval of the expenditure was a result of “bad judgment.”

“There were actions taken by personnel in this court which appear to exceed their authority,” Crawford said. “In all likelihood, we’re going to be engaging in some personnel action.”

He declined to discuss what action might be taken, or against whom.

Crawford and Judge Thomas Sokolov, presiding judge of the South Bay Municipal Court, said staff members are working on a spending plan that would reduce the court’s projected $2.5-million deficit.

The plan, to be released next month, will include staff reductions and a strategy for collecting delinquent fines, Crawford said. The fines supplement the court’s budget.

Even with the changes, however, Crawford said the South Bay court cannot operate within the $3.5 million allocated to it.

“If the court had had adequate appropriations, there would have been no need to seek funding elsewhere,” Crawford said.

“We’re not sitting here just whining, saying we don’t have enough funds,” he said. “We recognize there are serious fiscal problems facing the state, the county and the schools. . . . (But) if we were to reduce our activities to the level that the county presently has us funded for, we would virtually have to close the doors.”

South Bay Municipal Court Expenditures

The following are some of the expenditures by the South Bay Municipal Court using money from the county’s mandatory expense budget. The $55-million fund, which is shared by the county’s 24 municipal courts, is intended to cover such expenses as court-appointed attorneys, expert witnesses and interpreters.

Date Account Description Amount April ’89 Maintenance/ Various jobs $3,248 Building Improvement Oct. ’89 Management Training Leadership development $3,200 program for Mark Lomax Dec. ’89 Maintenance/ Build security guard $,498 Building Improvement reception counter Dec. ’89 Special Office Supplies Picture framing $345 Dec. ’89 Institute for Court Mgt. Records management seminar $1,060 Atlanta, for Adriane Robinson Jan. ’90 Maintenance/ Install ceiling tile $4,500 Building Improvement Jan. ’90 Maintenance/ Install light fixtures $4,730 Building Improvement June ’90 Building Maintenance Build parking garage for $3,489 Traffic Court judge June ’90 Management Training Stanford Alumni Assn. $5,200 humanities program for Mark Lomax June ’90 Stationery/Forms April ’90 newsletter $572 July ’90 Computer Equipment Color monitor, $2,427 graphics board July ’90 Office Expense Computer, monitor $4,163 and hardware July ’90 Office Furniture Chair, leather sofa $2,011 for judge’s chambers Aug. ’90 Seminars/Workshops Law, economics conference $4,651 in Moscow for law clerk Oct. ’90 Seminars/Workshops Computer seminar for $698 Barbara Flior, Dave Doyle, Dominic Pirozzi Feb. ’91 Travel Expense Phoenix conference $694 for Mark Lomax Feb. ’91 Travel Expense Stanford humanities $414 program for Mark Lomax

Source: County Chief Administrative Office