Humility Earned at a Heavy Price

At first glance, Alan Robbins is barely recognizable to people who remember him as a powerful, cagey state senator. His once-dark hair is graying fast and he now has a trim mustache. There are deep lines across his forehead.

He is considerably thinner, the result of life in a federal prison camp.

There is uncharacteristic humility, a consequence of having been caught by the FBI and admitting guilt to political corruption--confessing that he had used his public office to extort cash for himself and contributions to his reelection campaigns.

“I would like nothing more than if someone could prove that what I did wasn’t illegal,” the former Van Nuys lawmaker, now 50, told a federal court last week. “But that isn’t going to happen. I have to live with reality. . . . I’m serving time.”

But not much more time, apparently. Robbins testified that he expects soon to be released to a halfway house and be set completely free by spring--his reward for having ratted on three longtime pals: former Coastal Commissioner Mark L. Nathanson, fellow former Sen. Paul B. Carpenter and lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson.

Robbins began serving a five-year sentence in June, 1992, but this past summer his term was reduced to two years because he had helped federal prosecutors go after his ex-buddies. Nathanson admitted soliciting bribes and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. Carpenter and Jackson pleaded not guilty to various corruption charges and have been sitting in the federal court, staring at their former confidant who is the prosecution’s star witness. They rarely make eye contact.

Jackson shakes his head a lot in disbelief.

*

This has been a reporter’s dream. Robbins wore a wire for the FBI and secretly recorded all his conversations with Jackson for four months in 1991. Prosecutors also have other evidence on more charges, but the tapes are the most dramatic. Now, in court, we get to listen along with the jury--eavesdropping on conversations between a legislator long thought to be a sleazeball and a suspect lobbyist, a 6-foot, 6-inch, rotund cigar-chomper straight from central casting.

My favorite is the first recording. They are hiding from public view, in the restaurant of an out-of-the way, ‘50s-era hotel across the Sacramento River from the capital. The lobbyist breathes heavily, almost whispers. They are careful not to let the waitress overhear them. Clay Jackson doesn’t realize he is the catch of the day for the FBI and takes the bait of his trusted ally.

The lobbyist bares his soul. It is another July budget crunch and he is exhausted. It’s only breakfast but “I’m ready to go home,” he says. “I went to sleep at 11 o’clock, woke up this morning at six, felt like I hadn’t even seen the pillow yet.”

Jackson’s weary mind is ideal for Robbins. The insurance lobbyist complains at length about a new problem with workers’ compensation legislation. Robbins, the shrewd chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, responds sympathetically. And he says, “quantify for me how important it would be” to assure the bill’s demise.

“This one bill . . . is probably the most important thing I’ve got this year,” Jackson replies.

The conversation drifts but Robbins keeps dangling the bait.

Robbins: “Give me a quantification. . . . I’ve got an idea I think you’ll love.”

Jackson: “You mean how important it is to the comp people? . . . Immense. . . . I could probably put something together on this in two days.”

Robbins: “Such as?”

Jackson: “Maybe a quarter?”

As in $250,000. He said it as casually as if he were asking if he could pass the sugar. And he’d been hooked.

*

The lobbyist never delivered. He strung along the senator for months. But Robbins kept pressing and the payoff “project” dominated their chats, all out of earshot of everyone except the FBI.

There was one intriguing exchange during a late August stroll in Capitol Park. As they pondered how best to launder the money, Robbins cautioned Jackson: “You be real careful. . . . You be extremely real careful. More than real careful who you trust around this place.”

“Yeah,” Jackson replies. “It’s gotten real wacko. . . . The quality of the individuals has declined radically.”

That depends on the criteria. But if one test is integrity, the quality has been rising with federal convictions and the removal of political scum.

Jackson, as we hear him on the tapes, was a bitter, arrogant, pressured man. Whether or not he committed a crime, he operated in a shady area and is paying the price. Robbins had about as much integrity as a Capitol Park squirrel. Neither man reflects the norm.