2 Former Card Club Promoters Plead Guilty : Courts: The onetime Oxnard casino principals admit to misdemeanor political money laundering and agree to pay fines.

Two former promoters of an Oxnard card casino pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor money laundering, the first case by the Ventura County district attorney’s year-old political corruption unit to end in conviction.

Michael E. Wooten, 45, of Camarillo and Frank Marasco, 48, of Ventura each pleaded guilty to a single count of political money laundering and agreed to pay fines of $3,000 apiece.

They admitted violating state law by making $998 in small contributions indirectly to two Oxnard councilmen, one former councilwoman and a state assemblyman.

The pleas were entered after prosecutors agreed to drop six money-laundering charges that each carried a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $10,000 fine. The key allegations in the six counts were incorporated into a single remaining count.

Trial was set to begin Thursday.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, who discovered the illegal contributions while investigating Oxnard card club promoters last spring, declined comment.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff G. Bennett said the pleas send “a message to politicians and campaign contributors alike that if you’re going to make or accept a contribution, you had better know the law.”

Neither Wooten nor Marasco could be reached for comment. Their attorneys said the case was resolved fairly.

But both also said the case could have been resolved more quickly as a civil prosecution, since both defendants immediately acknowledged that they had unintentionally broken the law.

“The minute they knew it was illegal, they admitted to the facts,” said Richard Loy, who represented Wooten. “This case was much to do about very little.”

Louis Chuck Samonsky, the lawyer for Marasco, said the fact that the case was prosecuted criminally suggests that Bradbury was politically motivated. Cases involving much more money are handled civilly in other jurisdictions, he said.

“I think it is closely tied to the fact that Mr. Bradbury made a statement to the Oxnard City Council that anybody involved in card clubs has got to be crooked,” Samonsky said. “And he set about to prove that even though the great majority of this money was donated well before the card club was even conceived.”

Bennett declined comment on Bradbury’s motivation. But he said the case was prosecuted appropriately.

“Any time we come across this type of activity, the person involved will be investigated and prosecuted,” he said. “There’s been a just resolution of the whole thing.”

In entering their pleas, Wooten and Marasco admitted that they illegally reimbursed three former employees for contributions to former Oxnard Councilwoman Dorothy Maron’s 1990 council race, Assemblyman Nao Takasugi’s 1992 Assembly race, Councilman Michael Plisky’s 1992 mayoral race and Councilman Thomas Holden’s 1993 council race.

Contributions are illegal under state law if the true identities of contributors are not revealed to candidates. Prosecutors said the candidates did not know of the Marasco and Wooten reimbursements.

The businessmen, who ran the now-defunct Darrik Marten Co. of Ventura, acknowledged nearly $1,000 in illegal contributions--about $500 to Maron, $250 to Takasugi, $149 to Plisky and $99 to Holden.

A separate grand theft case against the two men is pending. But a Superior Court judge said last week that he had tentatively decided to throw out the charge of stealing $10,000 in a construction deal unrelated to the card club.

The Oxnard City Council considered a card casino because of its tax and job benefits, but killed the project when faced with strong community opposition and Bradbury’s condemnation of casinos at a hearing in June.

Times staff writer Dwayne Bray contributed to this report.