Files Seized by FBI Link Brown, Nathanson : Probe: Agents came across the fund-raising records in search of coastal commissioner’s home. Assembly Speaker has not been implicated in those charges.

FBI agents searching the home of California Coastal Commissioner Mark L. Nathanson two years ago seized records of Nathanson’s fund raising for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and other politicians, according to a court document unsealed this week.

Although Nathanson was recently indicted on extortion and racketeering charges, the Democratic Speaker has not been implicated in those allegations, according to federal prosecutors.

The court document, an affidavit by FBI Special Agent James J. Wedick, quotes a source as saying that Nathanson, a Beverly Hills real estate broker, was helped by Brown in return for raising campaign contributions.

The FBI source, former Pasadena car dealer Jerry Simms, quoted ex-Sen. Alan Robbins, now serving a five-year sentence for racketeering and income tax evasion, as saying that the Speaker did things for the coastal commissioner “because Mark Nathanson raised money for Brown.”

Among these favors, according to the affidavit, was Brown’s help in Nathanson’s efforts to acquire the use of airport terminal gates in Los Angeles and New York for MGM Grand Air, a luxury airline that had employed Nathanson.

The Times has previously reported that Terry Christensen, a director of MGM Grand, the airline’s parent company, said Brown “called someone in New York and asked if they would meet with us.”

Nathanson’s secretary, Mary O’Connor, is also quoted in the affidavit as saying she believes that her boss was hired by the airline “because of his political connections” and was “dealing in favors” and “selling his influence.”

The affidavit was issued after FBI agents searching Nathanson’s home unexpectedly discovered material relating to MGM Grand and Nathanson’s campaign fund raising. Wedick said that during the search investigators found what they believed was additional “evidence of criminal wrongdoing.” Fearing that the documents might be destroyed, agents stood guard until a second search warrant could be obtained early on the morning of Nov. 17, 1990.

It was unsealed in Los Angeles as federal prosecutors have begun to give Nathanson’s lawyers thousands of pages of documents in advance of his trial, scheduled to begin in February. Nathanson has pleaded not guilty.

Nathanson’s attorney, Stephen L. Braga, noted Friday that the indictment did not include any charges concerning MGM Grand “presumably because the government has found . . . that there is nothing wrong there.”

Braga said that Nathanson has raised money for politicians but that “he hasn’t used it for any improper influence.”

Although U.S. Atty. George L. O’Connell made it clear that Brown was not implicated in the case against Nathanson, Brown has previously been the subject of FBI scrutiny. One of his former law clients, Norcal Solid Waste Systems, is the target of a continuing investigation, according to sources familiar with the federal probe.

Jim Lewis, Brown’s press secretary, questioned the credibility of the government’s informants Friday and said the affidavit contains “not a shred of evidence” that the Speaker did anything illegal. “All you have is secondhand statements from people who are either in jail or who would not have firsthand knowledge of anything the Speaker has done.”

Times staff writer Jim Newton in Los Angeles contributed to this story.