Corruption Trial to Give a Sordid View of Politics : Capitol: Two former state legislative aides will get their day in court. Prosecutors will allege vote-buying on the installment plan and hiring of lawmakers’ relatives to influence legislation.

The corruption trial of two former legislative aides that is scheduled to begin in federal court today is expected to provide a cynic’s view of politics in the Capitol--one in which campaign money is paid on the installment plan, relatives are hired for state jobs and special-interest bills sail through without a dissenting vote.

Relying on secretly recorded tapes, prosecutors say they will show how direct payments and campaign contributions assured passage of bills designed to benefit bogus companies that were part of an elaborate FBI sting.

Facing charges that they extorted money from undercover agents are former legislative aides Tyrone Netters and Darryl Freeman, who later became a Capitol lobbyist.

Both were caught up in the sting, code-named Brispec (for Bribery--special interest), in which FBI agents posed as Southern businessmen pushing legislation to help set up a shrimp processing plant near Sacramento. The sting already has led to the convictions of former state senators Joseph B. Montoya and Paul E. Carpenter and guilty pleas from two other legislative aides. A third legislative aide escaped prosecution by agreeing to become an FBI informant.

Attorneys for Netters and Freeman argue that their clients broke no laws and were simply following the time-honored rules of legislative politics--where money is used, not to buy votes, but to gain access and influence in the halls of the Capitol.

However, according to transcripts of secretly recorded conversations with undercover agents and informants, Netters and Freeman boasted of how the system can be manipulated by those who know how to lubricate it with sufficient cash.

In one taped conversation in 1988, Netters told undercover FBI agent George Murray, “I mean, we know how to receive money around this place without going to the (expletive) jail. . . . You don’t survive in this place unless you learn how to do that.”

In an encounter taped two years before, Freeman advised undercover agent Jack Brennan that it was foolish to lay out all the money for political contributions up front and expect the politicians to deliver. “I worked over there (in the Capitol) long enough to know that some neophytes in the business put their money up first. And then there’s a crap shoot” on whether the politician delivers on a promise.

Portions of transcripts from these and other tapes are included in voluminous court records filed in preparation for the trial.

Some of the same transcripts are used by the defense attorneys to bolster their case that the men acted within the law. In 1986, for example, Freeman told businessman Marvin Levin, who was secretly an FBI informant, that money did not assure the success of legislation: “But if he (FBI agent Brennan) expects somebody to walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, for $2,000, I’ll make sure it gets through,’ that ain’t gonna happen.”

However, the tapes also depict Freeman acting as an intermediary between Netters and Brennan in negotiating a payment schedule. Brennan was to pay $2,500 to the campaign committee of Netters’ boss, Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles), who was carrying the bill to benefit the bogus company. Another $2,500 would follow after the bill won approval.

But at one critical point, in August, 1986, Moore returned the money to avoid making it appear that the contribution was in return for passage of the bill, according to the prosecution. Instead, Freeman arranged a $3,500 contribution through an unrelated company, “so that it would appear that these moneys did not come from (the bogus FBI company),” the prosecutor said.

In an earlier tape, made available to The Times, Freeman boasts of his close contacts with the Assembly leadership, including his former boss, then-Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

“I hired her son for a job,” he is quoted as saying, referring to Edward Waters, who held various jobs with the state Department of Employment Development where Freeman also worked in the early 1980s. “He had no more business being in that job than my 3-year-old baby has,” Freeman said. “Sometimes you couldn’t find him for days.”

On the same tape, Freeman described being under pressure from the assemblywoman to spend state money for the rental of limousines to transport celebrities to a rally in connection with a state-run project to improve cooperation with the 1980 U.S. Census. Freeman said he was scared by the suggestion, but eventually found a way to provide $10,000 to cover the cost of the limousines. He said he hid the expense in a payment to a consulting firm.

Now a member of Congress, the former assemblywoman said she had no recollection of the incident that Freeman described and denied that she played any role in obtaining a job for her son.

“I really don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said of Freeman’s secretly recorded remarks. “It shows how vulnerable we are as elected officials. We try to hire the best people, but we don’t always know what our people are doing.”

Freeman, 44, is charged with two counts of conspiracy and aiding and abetting extortion for his activities in 1986, when he worked with Netters on the passage of the first of the two shrimp bills.

Netters, 36, has been charged with nine counts of extortion, racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering and income tax evasion in 1986 and 1988, when he was an aide to Assemblywoman Moore. Late last year, the U.S. attorney’s office announced that the evidence did not warrant an indictment of Moore.

The defense attorneys already have begun arguing that the prosecutors misused their authority and engaged in selective prosecution. In particular, they have zeroed in on the fact that the FBI tipped off then-Gov. George Deukmejian, who vetoed sting bills in 1986 and 1988.

In court on Tuesday in preparation for the trial, U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton summed up the defense argument in questioning Assistant U.S. Atty. George O’Connell: “Everybody gets a free-choice decision (on whether to accept money to support legislation) without knowing it’s your bill until it gets to the governor’s office.”

O’Connell responded by saying that he and other federal authorities in charge of the sting did not want the phony special interest bill to be written into law.