San Fernando Parks Chief’s Records Seized : Investigation: Police documents say Jess Margarito authorized payment for work that was never done.

On nine occasions, San Fernando parks director Jess Margarito prepared records directing payment and credit for work that never was performed, city police alleged in a request for a search warrant filed Tuesday.

Armed with the warrant, San Fernando police Tuesday afternoon seized a box of records and computer equipment allegedly used by Margarito and a subordinate. Investigators also sought an erased computer tape in the hands of a subcontractor, which they hope to restore to retrieve evidence of Margarito’s actions, according to the court papers.

The warrant, signed by Municipal Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis, was served two months after the San Fernando City Council ordered the Police Department to look into possible administrative wrongdoings by Margarito, a former councilman and mayor who was appointed to the $62,000-a-year parks post in 1990.

The district attorney’s office has been investigating Margarito for possible criminal wrongdoing since April. A spokesman for that office said that inquiry is continuing.

“I’d rather not respond,” Margarito said Tuesday. “I’ll let the process take its course.”

In the past, Margarito has assailed the investigation as a racially and politically motivated attempt to destroy his career.

The longtime Latino activist and former census worker cut his political teeth battling white powerbrokers during the 1980s. His career climaxed in 1986, when the City Council’s first Latino majority selected him as mayor. He resigned his seat to take the council-appointed parks post in 1990.

The 82-page document filed Tuesday is a request to search Margarito’s city offices, based on an affidavit signed by Lt. Ernest Halcon of the San Fernando Police Department.

The affidavit said police believe Margarito falsified city documents to trigger the payment of $2,250 in city funds for work that was not performed, and that he vouched for work that never was completed by people ordered to perform public service as part of court sentences.

According to the affidavit, Margarito and a group of his associates ostensibly tried to create a political fiefdom within the government of the city of 23,500 in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

“In the apparent quest for political influence and/or control of financial resources . . . criminal acts have been committed. Anyone resisting or refusing to engage in the same type of practices (has) become the target of allegations charging incompetence, bias, sexual harassment or racial discrimination,” the document states.

Among the acts police say Margarito either initiated or approved, according to the court papers:

* A $525 payment to the husband of a parks employee for a plumbing job that parks workers say never was done.

* Payment of $500 to a volunteer worker who was not on the payroll--a check that investigators say the worker eventually used to pay his rent, owed to a former contributor to Margarito’s City Council campaign.

* Submission of a $415 invoice for payment to the half brother of a parks employee for a carpet-cleaning job that witnesses, including a supervisor, told police was never completed.

Earlier this year, the agency that assigns criminals to work in city parks as part of their sentences, the Volunteer Center of San Fernando Valley, suspended its activities with the San Fernando parks department. Center officials questioned time cards from Margarito’s department, saying some were handed in at 1 p.m. for work supposedly completed at 3 p.m. the same day or on the following day, according to the affidavit.

Margarito and five other parks employees in September filed fair-employment complaints against the city, saying the investigations were part of a pattern of harassment and discrimination against them. Those complaints remain unresolved, and Margarito has threatened to follow up with lawsuits.

Margarito has alleged that the complex case is retaliation for his having launched a city investigation into sexual harassment by a park supervisor.

A city inquiry cleared the supervisor, who, in turn, made allegations about wrongdoings in the parks department, Margarito said.

Tuesday’s affidavit alleges that investigators have “evidence of a sensitive nature” that the sexual-harassment charge “was untrue, and orchestrated by Jess Margarito.”