Ventura Port Official Failed to Disclose L.A. Bribery Conviction : Appointments: Commissioner responds to critics by pointing out that 1968 verdict was overturned.

A Ventura Port District commissioner is facing criticism for not disclosing a conviction for bribe-taking while he served as a Los Angeles Harbor commissioner 24 years ago in a case that was overturned on appeal.

A number of Ventura officials expressed dismay this week that Robert (Nick) Starr never mentioned the bribery case in interviews before they appointed him on June 29 to an unpaid seat on the five-member Board of Commissioners.

But others said they believe that Starr’s business acumen is such an asset to the struggling Port District that word of the decades-old case does little to change their support of him. Besides, they noted, Starr was legally exonerated when the conviction was overturned.

The Port District has been trying to free itself of legal entanglements and debts ever since the original developer of the Ventura Harbor Village complex of shops and restaurants went bankrupt in 1987.

Starr, 59, said in an interview that he thought there was no need to mention the bribery case to city officials because it was resolved and no one asked about it. “If they wanted that type of information, and maybe if they put down a question like, ‘Do you have anything that might embarrass the city of Ventura,’ maybe I would have filled it in,” Starr said.

But Councilwoman Cathy Bean said it does not matter that the conviction was thrown out.

“What matters is that we weren’t informed of this. I think this should have been disclosed,” Bean said.

“Twenty-four years is a long time, and certainly I’m not even going to put any judgment on him,” said Councilman Gary Tuttle. “But I do think it does not look good when somebody is appointed for the exact same position there was controversy around in the past.”

Ventura Harbor Manager Richard Parsons said he learned of Starr’s past this month from a Los Angeles Harbor official. The official, whom Parsons would not name, gave commissioners news clippings about the case.

The Los Angeles Times articles revealed that Starr and another Los Angeles Harbor commissioner were convicted in a 1968 jury trial on charges that their medical lab accepted $6,500 in furniture from a Los Angeles developer who wanted their help on a $12-million construction project. The stories were part of a series on city corruption that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969.

The judge sentenced Starr to one year in Los Angeles County Jail and forbade him ever to hold public office again, but allowed him to remain free pending appeal.

The state appeals court overturned Starr’s conviction in 1970. It ruled that the judge improperly failed to warn the jury not to consider Starr’s admission that his company accepted the furniture without considering other evidence in the case. The district attorney did not refile the charge, court records show.

In his many years of serving in governmental posts, Starr has been no stranger to controversy.

In the mid-1970s, the state ordered the San Fernando Valley Fair to stop renting space from Starr and his wife, Diane, because the rental was a conflict of interest; Diane Starr was one of the fair directors then, and Starr had been its manager for a year.

State regulators also investigated the couple’s 47-bed North Hollywood Lodge and Sanitarium and revoked the nursing home’s license after Los Angeles County health inspectors found problems with the handling of drugs there in 1973 and 1974, state records show.

Accurate drug records were not kept, some drugs were given without doctor’s orders and others were withheld despite prescriptions, according to state records. But by the time the county Department of Health Services revoked the home’s license in 1976, the Starrs had sold it, records show.

In the mid-1980s, Starr was accused of violating conflict-of-interest laws while helping trim Medi-Cal costs as a member of the state Medical Assistance Commission, but no charges were filed. Starr says the case was dropped after state prosecutors learned they had stumbled onto an FBI sting operation.

Three months before he was appointed to that commission, a state audit concluded that Starr’s medical laboratory had overbilled Medi-Cal.

Ventura officials, however, are focusing solely on the bribery case.

“You look at the decision, it says, hey, he confessed, he did it, he did everything. The courts overturned it on a technicality,” said Commissioner William Crew.

But Councilman Jack Tingstrom said he supported Starr’s appointment because of his business expertise.