Brusqueness Gone, Carpenter Captivates Federal Courtroom : Trial: Former state senator is folksy and amusing as he denies corruption allegations. Away from jury, he says he is dying of cancer and has mellowed.

His former colleagues would not have recognized him.

The humble, folksy Paul B. Carpenter who testified this week in his own defense in a political corruption case was nothing like the brusque, aloof lawmaker who was once one of the state Senate’s most cunning strategists.

For two days, Carpenter captivated a federal courtroom here, often provoking laughter from jurors and spectators as he tried to discredit the evidence produced by prosecutors in their effort to prove him guilty on 11 counts of money laundering, fraud and obstructing justice. Even the usually stern U. S. District Judge Edward J. Garcia occasionally allowed himself a faint smile.

Carpenter’s performance was different in many ways from how he presented himself in an earlier trial, often lecturing prosecutors and jurors on the way he believed the state Senate worked.

“I was an arrogant ass----,” he bluntly confided in an interview Thursday, blaming a previous conviction--since overturned--on his combative demeanor.

Although the 65-year-old Carpenter’s style may have changed, his goal remains the same--persuading a jury that federal authorities have fabricated a case against him.

He confides that there may also be a more personal reason for his softer, more relaxed approach.

The former senator who once represented a district that straddles Los Angeles and Orange counties believes he is dying of cancer. He figures that even if convicted, he probably will reach the grave before the prison cell.

“It’s going to kill me. The only thing we don’t know is when. Only God knows that,” he said.

His physician, Dr. Stuart Alexander Chalfin, a urological surgeon in Long Beach and Los Alamitos, confirmed his diagnosis that Carpenter has late-stage prostate cancer. “He is a high risk to succumbing to the illness,” said Chalfin, noting that Carpenter’s condition has spread to the lymph nodes.

Although it is impossible to predict what will happen to Carpenter, Chalfin, who spoke with the former senator’s permission, said the median life expectancy for men with Carpenter’s condition is 30 to 36 months.

“Of course, as with any statistic there are people on either side of that number,” Chalfin said. “It’s very difficult to exactly determine in any individual case what a person is going to do. But there is no question that he is in serious trouble. If he is extremely unlucky, he could be gone in a year with this.”

In discussing his illness, Carpenter’s bitterness toward federal prosecutors is obvious. “In the unlikely event that I were to die tomorrow, I think they would prop my body up in a chair in the courtroom and still hope for a conviction,” he said.

Federal prosecutors first charged Carpenter, a resident of Downey, with racketeering, extortion and conspiracy growing out of a $20,000 campaign payment he allegedly extorted from an undercover FBI agent in 1986.

Three years ago, a jury convicted him in the case and Garcia sentenced him to a 12-year prison term. A federal appeals court overturned the conviction, holding that Carpenter’s jury had not been properly instructed about the charges. He is scheduled to be retried.

Now, in a separate case, federal prosecutors are contending that Carpenter was part of a complicated scheme to launder campaign contributions from the clients of lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson to former state Sen. Alan Robbins, who is a serving a prison sentence as part of a plea bargain with the government.

The government maintains that Carpenter paid $78,000 to Jennifer Goddard, who owned a Santa Monica public relations firm that then illegally passed some of the money to Robbins. The charges against Carpenter stem from his years as a state senator and later as a member of the State Board of Equalization.

On the witness stand, Carpenter claimed that the payments he made to Goddard were legitimate reimbursement for what he said were her efforts to keep negative stories about him out of the Los Angeles Times. Carpenter contended that after hiring Goddard, the unfavorable stories in the paper ceased.

“I was a believer in FDR’s management philosophy: Do something and if it works, do it some more,” Carpenter told the jury.

Prosecutors, however, poked holes in his story, pointing out that shortly after he paid Goddard, The Times endorsed Carpenter’s opponent in the Board of Equalization race. “That’s about as negative as it gets,” Assistant U. S. Atty. Matthew Jacobs told Carpenter. “This woman was so good she got your opponent endorsed.”

Carpenter replied that Goddard’s influence rested with the news staff and not editorial writers. Both The Times and Goddard’s lawyer have denied that she had any influence with the newspaper.

Under questioning, Carpenter said he spoke to Goddard only once and had never required her to submit reports, analyses or examples of her work product. “The Los Angeles Times every morning was the acid test (of her work),” he insisted.

Prosecutors, attacking Carpenter’s credibility, pointed out that last year he told a state auditor that he had talked to Goddard “15 to 20 times.” Carpenter said he had no recollection of that statement.

While testifying about the press and other subjects, Carpenter often laced his statements with humor.

Talking about the disorganized atmosphere in the California Assembly, where he once served, he quipped: “It’s an argument for a unicameral Legislature.”

Carpenter, who holds a doctorate in experimental psychology, was uncharacteristically self-deprecating. “I’ve been told I wasn’t a very good manager,” he said, speaking of the way he ran his Senate office. “My enthusiasm for paperwork is very limited.”

Recalling that Robbins had once told him he could easily win a Board of Equalization seat, Carpenter said: “I reminded him of President Tom Dewey. I told him there was no such thing as a slam dunk in politics.”