Payments to Margarito Probed by D.A. : San Fernando: Fired parks director failed to report $14,000 in contributions, loans or income in late 1980s, a court affidavit shows.

Fired parks director Jess Margarito failed to report more than $14,000 in campaign contributions, loans or income while he was a councilman and mayor of San Fernando in the late 1980s, a court affidavit filed by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office showed Wednesday.

Investigators are questioning a series of payments to Margarito--who was dismissed from his San Fernando post by the City Council Monday night--from a nonprofit immigration group, Immigration Services of Santa Rosa, and its executive director, Eduardo Palacios, according to an affidavit filed as part of a request for a warrant to search Margarito’s bank records. The payments were made when Margarito served on the group’s board of directors, according to the an affidavit.

The district attorney’s office has seized 12 canceled checks totaling $14,850, written from February, 1987, through June 30, 1992, according to the affidavit signed by Tom Melbourn, a district attorney’s special investigator.

The bulk of the checks--$10,600--came from accounts held by Palacios, although three checks totaling $4,250 came from the group itself, according to the affidavit.

All of the checks were written to Margarito or his election and political action committees, and eight of the 12 were not reported on campaign disclosure forms as required by state law, the affidavit says. In addition, Margarito failed to report some loans and payments on state-required income-disclosure forms while he was a San Fernando councilman from 1984 to 1990, and later when he became parks director, the affidavit alleges.

The allegations in the affidavit indicate for the first time that the nine-month investigation of Margarito has expanded beyond his actions as head of the city Recreation and Community Services Department from 1990 until his firing Monday.

Palacios told The Times that he frequently gave money to help Margarito’s campaigns, but eventually felt Margarito was trying to “milk” the immigration group, and complained to law enforcement authorities. The district attorney’s investigation of Margarito started soon after Palacios complained last February, Palacios said Wednesday.

Among the actions that peeved Palacios was Margarito’s request for a $3,500 donation to his parks department in February, 1993. Margarito said Wednesday that the money was to go for a program for immigrant children, the type of donation the immigration group had made on other occasions.

But Palacios offered a starkly different version Wednesday: “That’s when the whole deal started--the whole investigation,” Palacios said. “I was sick and tired of this.”

The district attorney’s investigation began in April, centering on allegations that Margarito falsified time cards for criminal convicts assigned to work off sentences in parks, and submitted false invoices resulting in the city paying more than $2,000 for work that allegedly was not done.

The council, which had ordered its Police Department to look into the charges in October, dismissed Margarito based on the latter allegations Monday night.

Margarito on Wednesday acknowledged he had made errors in reporting eight checks totaling $13,300 identified in the affidavit. One of them--for $7,000--was a loan from Palacios that he paid back, Margarito said.

Another check, for $4,000, was for fees for consulting work he performed for Immigration Services of Santa Rosa, Margarito said. He said his failure to report the others was an oversight and that some have since been clarified with the investigator.

“I’ve always tried to maintain my own records, and these were sloppy errors,” Margarito said. “There was no intent to do anything else.”

Margarito described Palacios as one of his biggest contributors, and said he never accepted contributions from Immigration Services of Santa Rosa. The $4,000 consulting-fee check from the service was for writing its bylaws and helping set up the group, he said.

But the affidavit, quoting Palacios, alleges that Margarito solicited the $4,000 as payment for his service on the board--a violation of the group’s bylaws--and that Margarito persuaded Palacios to list it as consulting fees.

Palacios confirmed that version of events to The Times on Wednesday.

“They were not services,” said Palacios. “He asked me to give it to him. I don’t want to get involved in that one until I go to court.”

Times staff writer Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.