Hahn Aides Worked as Political Consultants : Government: Two in city attorney’s office are focus of Ethics Commission investigation into whether activity was proper.

Two aides who figure prominently in an investigation of alleged payroll irregularities in City Atty. James K. Hahn’s office have collected thousands of dollars in outside income in recent years as political consultants, records and interviews show.

One aide, city computer specialist Anthony C. Roland, carried a beeper while working at City Hall and used it to keep in touch with political clients, according to his customers and his attorney.

In addition, a review of hundreds of pages of public documents and interviews with city officials show that four other key Hahn aides have juggled a variety of campaign tasks and public duties in recent years. These include fund raising for Hahn, helping set up Hahn’s political office near downtown, running for elected and Democratic Party offices, and helping manage recent campaigns.

The extent of political activity in Hahn’s office--and whether any of it violated state laws--is the focus of an investigation started last year by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission in cooperation with the district attorney’s office. The inquiry centers on allegations that some Hahn employees performed improper political tasks on government time, or failed to show up for work.

Political activity by City Hall aides is a commonplace practice, and Hahn aides say theirs was legal and was kept separate from their government jobs.

The city attorney has gone “the extra mile (to) build a wall between his job as city attorney and his political life,” said attorney Jerry Simmons, treasurer of Hahn’s political committees. She said Hahn has taken pains to follow the law by reimbursing aides for campaign tasks, having them take leaves to do political work and opening a separate political office.

Government reform advocates argue that when elected officials’ aides shift between public business and private political work, the separation between the two can easily become blurred.

“Far too often, people cross the line and actually do political work on government time,” said Lisa Foster, executive director of California Common Cause, a watchdog group.

Officials in Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s office said Roland and his supervisor, Hahn administrative aide Charles P. Fuentes, are of primary interest to investigators. Their city offices and Roland’s West Hollywood home were searched by investigators Dec. 26.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Turley, part of a team of prosecutors assigned to the case two weeks ago, emphasized that the scope of the investigation has not been defined and no one has been exempted from scrutiny. “We’ve been given the charge of reviewing the evidence and of following it wherever it leads,” Turley said.

He declined to say whether any other Hahn aides are under investigation.

Turley and Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman, who also is working on the case, recently won high-profile convictions against Lincoln Savings & Loan chief Charles H. Keating Jr. The Keating prosecutors are a “top team” in the district attorney’s office and placing them on the case reflects the importance of the investigation of Hahn’s office, a Reiner spokeswoman said.

Although the scope of the investigation remains unclear, an analysis of public records and interviews reveal outside political activity by Roland, Fuentes and several other Hahn aides.

Roland, a $53,000-a-year computer specialist in Hahn’s office, collected at least $20,000 in the last two years as a consultant to a growing list of Democratic political clients, most of whom hired Roland to set up systems to track campaign contributors, according to records and interviews. Roland’s clients included state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, Los Angeles Councilman Michael Woo, the law firm of former state Democratic Party Chairman Peter Kelly, as well as Hahn, whose campaign paid Roland about $9,100 in 1990.

Roland maintained computers and some client-related political data at his home, interviews show. Much of the equipment and data were seized when district attorney’s office investigators raided the residence, according to clients who spoke with Roland after the raid. Spokeswomen for Woo and Brown, who are not part of the investigation, said some of their records apparently were seized.

Clients also said Roland carried a beeper so they could reach him.

“I dealt with him at all hours of the day, night and weekends,” said Cathy Unger, a fund-raising consultant to Brown, whose political committee paid Roland $7,000 to $8,000 last year to maintain a list of contributors. Unger and two other Roland clients said they believed that Roland was a private computer consultant and did not realize he was on Hahn’s City Hall staff until news of the investigation broke last month.

Roland’s attorney, Brian O’Neill, said his client did not conduct private business from City Hall.

Roland used his City Hall office phone to return calls from political clients, but only infrequently and only to advise them he would contact them later, O’Neill said. Typically, Roland would wait until his lunch hour or after work hours, when he would call clients from home or a pay phone, the attorney said.

Roland also took vacation and compensatory time off, or worked part time to accommodate his outside business activities, O’Neill said. “He never billed the city for work he didn’t do or time he wasn’t entitled to,” the attorney said.

However, one of Roland’s supervisors in the computer section of Hahn’s office refused to sign his time card at one point, saying she could not verify whether Roland worked the hours that were claimed, according to City Hall sources. O’Neill said Roland had a dispute with the supervisor and that is the root of the allegations against his client.

Fuentes, who most recently supervised Roland and signed his time cards, was paid $73,297 as the top administrative manager in Hahn’s 700-employee office.

He also reported earning up to $10,000 in outside income as a political consultant in 1990, according to Fuentes’ most recent statement of his personal financial interests.

Campaign records and interviews show that Fuentes has been paid about $7,000 in fees and reimbursements since 1988 as a consultant to various Hahn political committees.

Simmons, treasurer of Hahn’s political committees, said Fuentes was paid $2,200 to coordinate a 1990 fund-raising dinner for Hahn.

Neil Papiano, Fuentes’ attorney, confirmed that his client raised contributions for Hahn, but said he did it on his own time.

“He has a right to do that. . . . He didn’t do any (political work) in City Hall,” Papiano said. “They bent over backward to do everything properly.”

In addition to his fund raising and consulting work, Fuentes in 1989 mounted a successful campaign for vice chairman of the state Democratic Party. Records show he raised and borrowed about $15,000 for the campaign.

When Fuentes launched his campaign, Hahn was concerned about just the type of controversy that is engulfing his office, said Mike Qualls, Hahn’s spokesman. Hahn instructed Fuentes to keep Democratic Party activities away from the office, Qualls said.

“He called him in and told him that he wanted to be absolutely sure none of it ever overlapped into city work time,” Qualls said. Hahn has declined to comment on the investigation, other than to say he is cooperating fully.

Other key Hahn aides, while not identified as targets of the investigation, have been active in outside campaign activity in recent years, records and interviews show.

Assistant City Atty. Stephen Besser, who oversees the major city litigation, has been a Hahn campaign fund-raiser, according to sources familiar with Besser’s political work.

Hahn’s campaign reports show that Besser has been reimbursed nearly $2,000 since 1988 by Hahn’s political committees for luncheon tabs, meetings, cellular phone bills, making phone calls and other tasks. Besser has not responded to requests for interviews, but Simmons confirmed that Besser has been a volunteer fund-raiser.

Executive Assistant City Atty. John Emerson, a longtime Democratic Party activist who heads the legal side of Hahn’s office, took a leave of absence last year to run unsuccessfully for the state Assembly.

Emerson said he also has sought contributions for Hahn. But he said they probably totaled only a few thousand dollars and he never sought contributions from his city office or on city time.

Emerson also accompanied Hahn to the 1988 Democratic National Convention, with one of Hahn’s political committees picking up the $1,100 tab for air fare and expenses.

“(Hahn’s) there. I’m there. I introduce him to people,” Emerson said.

When Emerson ran for state Assembly last year, Hahn’s City Hall liaison to the Latino community, Julio Ramirez Jr., joined Emerson’s campaign staff as deputy campaign manager.

Ramirez, who is active in an informal network of young, politically active downtown professionals who meet over breakfast with Democratic candidates and officeholders, has “very good ties and relationships in the Hispanic community,” Emerson said.

During the final weeks of the Emerson campaign, records show, Ramirez collected about half his city salary through use of vacation time and compensatory time, and nearly $9,000 from Emerson’s campaign committee. City officials said such an arrangement is permitted.

Ramirez did not respond to requests for interviews, but Emerson said his campaign activity, including Ramirez’s work, was kept strictly separate from Hahn’s office.

Ramirez, Roland and Tracy Robinson, Hahn’s liaison to the black community, are assigned part time to an informal research and community relations unit that is supervised by Fuentes, according to Qualls, Hahn’s spokesman.

City Hall and law enforcement sources have said investigators are interested in the activities of the community relations unit, although it does not appear that Ramirez and Robinson are targets of the investigation.

Like Ramirez, Robinson has been politically active among young professional groups and campaigns dating to Democrat Walter F. Mondale’s 1984 presidential bid. Last year, he told The Times in an interview that he wants to run for political office one day and is building bridges to the city’s minority communities to increase his opportunities.

In 1989, Robinson took a city leave to help run Hahn’s 1989 reelection campaign, according to Simmons. “He was the office manager and day-to-day person with the campaign,” she said.

Records also show that Robinson has performed other tasks for Hahn’s political committees, including helping set up Hahn’s political office in Chinatown. Robinson did not respond to requests for interviews.

Hahn aides and others note that it is common for political activists to serve on elected officials’ staffs, and to take leaves to work on campaigns. Indeed, the district attorney has come under attack in recent weeks from a political challenger, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling Norris, for putting two longtime political operatives on his payroll--pollster Stephen Teichner and former campaign manager Barbara Johnson.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Reiner, said that Teichner and Johnson are not doing political work at the district attorney’s office and that Norris’ complaints are based purely “on resumes.”

“The investigation of the city attorney’s office deals with job performance, not resumes,” she said.