Ex-Sen. Carpenter Flees Before Fraud Sentencing : Courts: A note indicates he has left U.S. for treatment of terminal cancer. Judge issues arrest order.

Days before his sentencing on political corruption charges, former state Sen. Paul B. Carpenter has left the country to seek “a more adventuristic” treatment for terminal prostate cancer.

In a handwritten note that reached federal Judge Edward J. Garcia on Thursday, the ailing Carpenter summed up his reasons for becoming a fugitive: “I find my drive for survival stronger than my sense of obligation to your legal system.”

Federal authorities first suspected that Carpenter had fled on Monday when he failed to make his weekly check-in call to the court.

On Thursday, when it was clear that the psychologist-turned-politician was in flight and would not appear for sentencing next week, Garcia issued an order for his arrest. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of more than seven years.

Carpenter’s attorney, Charles F. Bloodgood, said neither he nor Carpenter’s family knows where the convicted ex-politician has fled.

U.S. Atty. Charles J. Stevens said that Carpenter’s failure to report is a violation of federal criminal law and that the FBI is attempting to find him.

Carpenter, 65, learned last year that he has advanced prostate cancer. But he repeatedly said he was determined to clear his name despite the physical impact of the disease and treatment.

Looking worn and ashen, he took the stand in his own defense on charges of mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

After he and his co-defendant, Capitol lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson, were convicted in the case in December, he quickly filed an appeal. He hoped he would be able to remain out of prison, telling a reporter during the trial that he would probably die of cancer before his appeal was settled.

At the same time, the veteran Democratic politician who once represented a Downey district was continuing cancer therapy.

“I am being treated with the most advanced treatment protocol available in the United States,” Carpenter wrote in his undated letter to Garcia, who was scheduled to sentence him Monday. “Fifty percent of the patients on this treatment for as long as I have been will survive another 29 months. The other 50% will not.”

He complained that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been slow to approve new forms of treatment. “There are more adventuristic treatment protocols being used outside of the United States,” he said.

But since Garcia had refused his request to leave the state to spend Christmas with relatives after his conviction, Carpenter said, “I feel fairly confident in predicting that you will not let me leave the country for medical treatment.”

Bloodgood said Carpenter was aware he might be taken in custody at his sentencing hearing.

“On the day of the conviction, the government (prosecutors) moved to remand him (into) custody right then,” Bloodgood said. “But Judge Garcia said then that there was no indication of flight risk.”

Carpenter was free based on his promise to return to court and forfeits no bail.

Bloodgood, who said he was taken by surprise, noted that Carpenter’s hormone treatment “has caused some disorientation and depression.”

The attorney said Carpenter “is not that afraid of prison. In my opinion, he is trying to save his life by getting this treatment, and I wish him well.”

Carpenter faces up to seven years and three months in prison for his conviction last December on charges that he had laundered campaign contributions from lobbyist Jackson to former Sen. Alan E. Robbins. Like Carpenter, Jackson is scheduled for sentencing Monday. Robbins pleaded guilty to racketeering and tax evasion charges and is now in a halfway house, at the end of a two-year prison sentence.

Bloodgood said that because of federal sentencing guidelines, Garcia had little latitude in adjusting Carpenter’s sentence.

“The problem is the guidelines themselves are merciless,” Bloodgood said. “They do not provide the court with much in the way of discretion. . . . There is no provision for an exception to grant mercy to a dying man.”

Federal prison officials have the authority to release seriously ill inmates, Bloodgood said.

Carpenter is also awaiting a retrial in an earlier federal criminal case in which his conviction was overturned on appeal. In that case, he is accused of extortion, racketeering and conspiracy. The charges include extorting campaign contributions from an undercover FBI agent who was masquerading as a Southern businessman as part of a sting operation.

By the time of his first trial in 1990, Carpenter had been elected to the State Board of Equalization. He was forced off the board by the conviction. Although he won reelection less than two months later, he was barred from resuming office by state law.

This is not the first time Carpenter has been in trouble with the federal court. Last year, he failed to appear at a court hearing on his retrial. His lawyer discovered that Carpenter was on a mountain-climbing trip to Costa Rica. But Carpenter eventually did appear and said he was unaware he was barred from leaving the country while awaiting trial.

His latest disappearance echoes that of another powerful Southern California politician, William G. Bonelli Sr., who like Carpenter once chaired the State Board of Equalization.

In 1956, Bonelli fled to Mexico after being indicted on bribery charges for allegedly taking payoffs for granting of liquor licenses. He died there in 1970, to the end insisting that he was innocent.