Carpenter Corruption Convictions in Doubt

The corruption convictions and 12-year prison sentence of former state Sen. Paul Carpenter ran into trouble Wednesday in a federal appeals court because of recent U.S. Supreme Court restrictions on extortion charges against public officials.

One of the prosecutors who won convictions on four felony charges against Carpenter in September, 1990, spent the entire hearing arguing, seemingly with little success, that crucial jury instructions in Carpenter’s trial differed from those given at the trial of former state Sen. Joseph Montoya.

Montoya’s extortion convictions were overturned in September by another panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Carpenter (D-Cypress) spent 12 years in the Legislature and four years on the State Board of Equalization. He and Montoya are the only two lawmakers tried so far in the FBI’s undercover investigation of vote-selling in the state Capitol. Former state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) has agreed to plead guilty to related charges.

The issue in Carpenter’s case is the same as in Montoya’s: whether the jury was allowed to convict him of soliciting illegal payoffs from contributors without deciding whether he explicitly promised favors in return, as the Supreme Court now requires.

But the cases have at least one important difference: Montoya had additional convictions that the appeals court upheld, a ruling that would leave him in prison unless overturned. All of Carpenter’s convictions are tied to the legal dispute over extortion and would be thrown out if the jury instructions were ruled improper.

Looking ahead to that possibility, Assistant U.S. Atty. Christopher Nuechterlein urged the court at least to allow a retrial, arguing that there was evidence presented to the jury that Carpenter had promised official action in return for money. But defense lawyer Merrick Scott Rayle contended that the charges should be dismissed permanently.

Carpenter, 63, who was sentenced to prison a year ago Wednesday, is free on bail during his appeal and is seeking reinstatement to the Board of Equalization, a tax policy body.

The heart of the case against Carpenter was his acceptance of a $20,000 contribution in 1986 from an FBI agent who posed as a businessman seeking passage of a bill to help a shrimp-processing company. Carpenter contended that he neither promised nor did anything to help the bill’s passage.