CAPITOL JOURNAL : Investigators Doggedly Seek Out Corruption

The federal grand jury investigating state Sen. Alan Robbins died this week.

It ended its days as it was born, in the darkness and secrecy that marks the grand jury system; without so much as an epitaph. After two years, the jurors did not indict Robbins, but neither did they clear him.

Does that mean the San Fernando Valley Democrat can dismiss his attorneys and put the investigation behind him?

The simple answer is no.

Sources say that a new grand jury will resume the investigation of allegations that Robbins improperly used his office for personal gain.

To prosecutors, the passing of a criminal investigation from one grand jury to another is an inconvenience, a headache. Evidence gathered by the earlier jury can be presented again using transcripts and FBI agents’ testimony, without the need to call back witnesses.

But the death of one grand jury and the birth of another make a point: these federal prosecutors are not likely to quit.

They have no intention of hurrying the investigation of Robbins or of any other political figures who have been touched by the political corruption inquiry.

Late last month, the FBI was in the Capitol, without subpoenas or search warrants, just asking questions about bills that could have helped a client of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

The conventional wisdom here--and Brown has said as much--is that the feds are not targeting the Speaker, but the client, Norcal Solid Waste Systems, one of the country’s biggest trash haulers. The questions that the agents were asking suggest that they still are trolling for evidence that might show Norcal bought political favors from Brown or other politicians.

The point is that these prosecutors and FBI agents are a determined, painstaking bunch.

“All in due course,” was a favorite expression of the last U.S. attorney here, David F. Levi, now a federal judge.

It continues as the unstated motto of the investigation under Assistant U.S. Atty. George L. O’Connell, who has been tapped to replace Levi.

The federal corruption probe began in earnest in 1985, when the FBI launched a sting operation called Brispec, for Bribery--Special Interest. In the sting, FBI agents went undercover, posing as businessmen who needed help from the Legislature to start a shrimp processing plant near Sacramento.

The sting phase ended in August, 1988, when FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents searched the Capitol offices of several lawmakers. The raid blew the cover off the sting.

In the three years that followed, two former Democratic state senators--Joseph B. Montoya and Paul E. Carpenter--were indicted and convicted in sting-related cases.

Robbins is one of the politicians who understandably might complain that he has been left dangling.

So might Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) and Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), whose offices were searched on that August night three years ago.

Yet it can be argued that the corruption investigation has not hurt any of its unindicted subjects politically, although it had to be in the back of voters’ minds last year, when they approved Proposition 140, limiting terms of lawmakers.

Brown remains the Speaker. And in recent weeks, he has shown just how potent a politician he can be--wheeling and dealing with a Republican governor on welfare cuts and tax increases.

Nolan lost his position as Republican Assembly leader in 1988, but that was months after the FBI search. He was booted from the job because he committed an unforgivable, political crime--losing three Republican seats in the Assembly that November. But Nolan has had no problem winning reelection.

Hill, an assemblyman at the time of the raid, successfully moved up to the Senate, where he has emerged as a GOP leader.

Robbins easily won reelection to the Senate in November.

Whatever their personal discomfort, these politicians are still going strong.

And so are the investigators and prosecutors, who are well aware of the failures of earlier inquiries into political corruption in the Capitol.

“They are very thorough,” said one of the witnesses who has been through at least one grueling session before the Robbins grand jury.

So you ask, will this investigation never end? The answer does not satisfy: it will end when the prosecutors are ready, and so far, there’s no end in sight.