Aide Said Roth Fudged on Gifts to Keep His Vote

Convicted former Supervisor Don R. Roth intentionally undervalued expensive meals from business people through “creative” bookkeeping so that he could continue voting on their projects, his chief of staff said in an interview with authorities made public this week.

The newly released documents also raise the previously undisclosed allegation that Roth secretly accepted several thousand dollars in cash in the 1980s for trips to Hawaii and Palm Springs from W. Patrick Moriarty, the Anaheim fireworks manufacturer who later became the key figure in one of the biggest corruption scandals in state history.

Roth, who was mayor of Anaheim at the time, even posed for photos with the cash, his ex-wife, Jackie Roth, alleged in an interview last November with a team of investigators and prosecutors with the Orange County district attorney’s office. Transcripts of both interviews were among seven volumes of material in the investigation that were reviewed by The Times after the newspaper sought them under the California Public Records Act.

Roth “always voted to keep the fireworks going,” Jackie Roth told investigators. “I think it was Patrick’s way of probably saying thank you.”

The allegations appear to contradict two assertions that Roth maintained throughout the 11-month influence-peddling probe that ended last month with his criminal conviction: that any violations of political ethics laws were “technical” and “inadvertent,” and that Roth never accepted illicit cash payments from business people during his political career.

Roth’s attorney, Paul S. Meyer, declined to comment Thursday and said Roth also would not be available to discuss the allegations. “He won’t want to talk about the facts of any part of the investigation now that it’s settled,” Meyer said.

District attorney’s officials did not pursue either of the issues in pressing charges against Roth last week, saying that they were hindered by the statute of limitations and other legal pitfalls.

The highly publicized probe of Roth was aimed at determining whether the supervisor traded his votes for as much as $40,000 in home improvements, trips, stock, and other gifts from local business people. Many of the allegations were first raised in The Times.

The probe forced Roth, 71, to resign his post on March 1, ending his career as one of Orange County’s most powerful politicians.

Prosecutors never established that Roth accepted any bribes. But last week, after reaching an agreement with the district attorney that allowed him to avoid jail time, Roth pleaded guilty to seven political ethics-law violations--all misdemeanors--and agreed to pay $50,000 in fines. He was also ordered to perform 200 hours of community service and placed on three years’ probation.

Roth admitted violating state laws that require local officials to report all gifts of $50 or more and prohibit them from voting on matters affecting anyone who has given them $250 in gifts within a year.

The newly released investigative interview transcripts add details to many of the allegations that emerged publicly in the last year about gifts to Roth--from frequent stays in Palm Springs as a guest of local business people to free tickets in Las Vegas and New York.

While Roth’s lawyers have portrayed his violations of state gift-reporting and conflict-of-interest laws as a matter of negligence, the supervisor’s longtime chief of staff, Steven E. Malone, painted a different picture in the interview with investigators last month. Malone suggested that Roth was aware of his potential gift-reporting problems for several years--but found ways to avoid them.

Malone told investigators in a March 8 interview, one week after Roth resigned but before he pleaded guilty, that he and the supervisor hit on a system several years ago for reporting free meals in Roth’s annual gift-disclosure statements: they would list $10 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $30 for dinner--regardless of the meal’s actual cost.

Often, Malone acknowledged to authorities, a lunch at Antonello’s or the Ritz, two pricey Orange County restaurants, would far surpass $20--particularly if Roth and other guests ordered wine or other drinks.

In fact, as investigators pointed out to Malone during the lengthy interview, the tab for lunches that Roth and his staff members received courtesy of local business people occasionally topped $1,000.

But Malone, fired last month by Roth’s successor, Supervisor William G. Steiner, said reporting the true value of some gifts might have forced Roth to abstain from votes involving donors of more than $250.

“There was knowledge of my part that when I was preparing these Statements of Economic Interest that a 10, 20, 30 formula (for the value of the free meals) might in some instances be helpful to Don in staying under the $250 limit with some people,” Malone said, according to the transcripts.

Malone added that he knew avoiding abstentions was important to Roth.

“He didn’t want to have a disqualification,” he said. “He wanted to stay under the $250 with these various donors, and I suggested basically that . . . (the formula) was the sort of justifiable way that . . . (would) allow him to do that. And he nodded, and that’s what we did.” Even so, Malone said, he worried about conflicts in Roth’s dealings with several companies. “I think that he knew that if he was not over the threshold substantially, that he was right on the threshold,” Malone said.

Asked about the transcripts Thursday, Malone told a reporter he did not “feel comfortable” talking about the case.

One particular problem arose several years ago with GTE, later to become Contel, which was awarded a multimillion-dollar county telephone contract and also provided Roth with regular meals, golf outings and other gifts.

“I suggested he was . . . in a very treacherous area, and he might want to consider abstaining” from GTE/Contel votes, Malone said. But Roth simply said: “Don’t worry about it,” the aide recounted.

In the interview, Malone recalled telling Roth “we’re being real creative on the accounting” in order to avoid conflict problems with Contel and other firms with matters before the Board of Supervisors.

Roth accepted some meals that were never reported at all--especially after he broke up with his wife in mid-1990, Malone claimed. “I think he accepted quite a bit from contractors that weren’t ever reported,” he said.

Roth did not usually go out to “fancy lunches,” Malone said. “They’re business meetings where somebody is trying to sell you engineering services or whatever it happens to be, and you’re spending your time listening to their sales pitch,” he said.

The supervisors’ staff members are also required to file gift disclosure forms, and Malone faced questioning from investigators about such potential problems of his own.

Malone was asked about his acceptance of a chartered flight to Palm Springs to meet Roth and two executives of the Presley Cos. for a golf outing in 1989.

Malone was the only passenger on the plane, which Presley officials chartered at a cost of $1,036, records show. Presley is the same company that gave Roth thousands of dollars in free improvements to his Anaheim Hills home, a gift that resulted in two of Roth’s guilty pleas.

Malone told investigators that he was unsure how or whether to report the chartered flight. Ultimately, he did not report it at all.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade said prosecutors decided not to file charges against Malone “in light of his cooperation toward the end” of the criminal investigation.

“When you compare the severity of (the allegations against him) against the framework of Supervisor Roth’s activities, it really didn’t match up as far as pursuing him,” Wade said.

Another area not pursued by the district attorney, materials released this week show, was Roth’s relationship with Moriarty.

When asked about the relationship, Jackie Roth said in an interview with investigators last year that Moriarty had given her then-husband an unspecified sum of money as a way of reimbursing him for at least two personal vacations in the mid-1980s, when Roth was mayor of Anaheim.

But prosecutors said that regardless of their legality, the alleged payments appeared to fall outside the four-year statute of limitations established under the state’s 1974 Political Reform Act.

Moriarty was out of town this week and could not be reached for comment. Jackie Roth declined to discuss the issue when contacted by a reporter.

Moriarty was convicted in 1985 of mail fraud charges in connection with a massive political corruption probe that also led to the indictments of 10 business and political associates statewide. He served 29 months in prison but was awarded an early release in 1988 after a U.S. Supreme Court decision threatened his conviction.

In the early 1980s, Moriarty had sought to ally himself with state and local politicians to promote the passage of so-called “safe and sane” fireworks legislation that would have made it legal for him and others to sell fireworks throughout the state. Moriarty and associates gave nearly $600,000 to California politicians--much of it allegedly laundered through employees and business associates.

Moriarty was friendly with Roth and contributed occasionally to his political campaigns. After Roth’s successful 1986 campaign for supervisor, Roth complained that his opponent tried to “smear” him by unfairly linking him to Moriarty, even though Roth was never identified as part of the investigation.

In her interview with authorities, however, Jackie Roth said that Roth himself accepted money from Moriarty as “reimbursement” for the trips to Hawaii and Palm Springs that the couple took.

She said that Moriarty “supplied a condominium” near Maui for the Roths and friends of theirs from Tulsa, Okla. He also paid for most or all of the expenses for the trips--including air fare--and said she recalled that one payment for the Hawaii trip came to about $1,800. But Jackie Roth did not reveal many other details of the alleged payments to investigators.

Roth, she said, even posed for a picture in Hawaii with the cash from Moriarty. “I can show you pictures of all kinds of money on a table,” she told investigators. But authorities apparently never received the alleged photograph and Jackie Roth declined comment when asked about it Thursday.

While Jackie Roth said she did not believe the payments were intended to influence any specific votes by Roth on the Anaheim council, she told authorities her then-husband was always supportive of keeping fireworks legal.

Jackie Roth also told authorities that Newport Beach developer Magdy Hanna gave the Roths “a beautiful Baccarat vase at Christmastime” several years ago. Hanna declined repeated requests for interviews on this and other issues.

The vase, later valued at several hundred dollars, was not reported on any of Roth’s gift-disclosure forms filed each year under penalty of perjury.