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U.S. Prosecutor Gets Reprimand in Payola Case

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TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The Justice Department has formally reprimanded a veteran prosecutor for failing to disclose critical information in a high-profile Los Angeles payola case, according to court documents obtained by The Times.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Jo Ann Harris, in charge of the criminal division, criticized the actions of William S. Lynch, the lead prosecutor in the government’s case against Joseph Isgro of Glendale, who was the nation’s largest independent record promoter in the 1980s. Isgro’s defense lawyer said the Justice Department’s action was inadequate and “a whitewash.”

U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman, who first dismissed charges against Isgro in 1990, has said: “This is a case where the government’s misconduct was as outrageous and egregious as anything that I have seen.”

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Ideman dismissed the payola case against Isgro and two other men after learning that Lynch, who had been sent from Washington to head the prosecution, concealed information that cast serious doubts on the merits of the case. Prosecutors are required by law to turn over any material that might exonerate a defendant.

On Wednesday, Justice Department officials formally notified Judge Ideman that they had reprimanded Lynch. “As a result of my review, I found that Mr. Lynch had failed to produce a document that he should have produced to the defense,” Harris said in a letter to the judge.

Harris, however, emphasized that Lynch did not intentionally violate his obligation to disclose the information and said the prosecutor had not realized the significance of the document to the defense.

Lynch declined comment, as did Ideman, through his secretary.

In her letter to the judge, Harris said that Atty. Gen. Janet Reno “has directed me to give the highest priority to developing uniformly high standards relating” to the government’s duty to disclose exculpatory information. The Isgro case is one of several recent instances in which the actions of government attorneys have been harshly criticized by federal judges.

The document Lynch failed to disclose was a transcript of testimony given by Isgro’s former tax lawyer, Dennis DiRicco, in an earlier San Francisco case. Ideman characterized the testimony as “a complete and detailed denial of any wrongdoing . . . by any of the defendants in this case.”

The judge noted that at a later Los Angeles grand jury session, Lynch “extracted . . . diametrically opposed testimony” from DiRicco that played a key role in obtaining an indictment against Isgro.

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The earlier testimony cast doubts upon DiRicco’s credibility, and thus could have helped Isgro. But Ideman said the government had attempted to lull the defense with “false assurances” that there was no exculpatory material and that Lynch “engaged in active misrepresentation to the court regarding the existence of such material.”

Nearly three years later, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted an internal investigation and concluded that Lynch “did not intentionally violate” his disclosure requirements.

Officials concluded that Lynch did not intentionally lie to Ideman concerning the transcript of DiRicco’s prior testimony. Instead, they found that Lynch was “unfamiliar with the substance of the 800-page transcript” and because of this did not recognize that it contained material helpful to the defense.

When Assistant Atty. Gen. Harris reviewed the case, she agreed with the findings. Nonetheless, she concluded that Lynch should be reprimanded because he failed to produce exculpatory evidence “and exposed the United States Department of Justice to damaging allegations of professional misconduct.”

A March 24 letter from Harris to Lynch, who has been with the Justice Department since 1961, states: “In view of your imminent retirement, outstanding career, clear acceptance of responsibility and genuine remorse for the mistake you made here, I do not believe further discipline is required.”

Isgro’s defense lawyer, Donald M. Re of Los Angeles, criticized the Justice Department’s action as “a whitewash.”

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“They completely ignore specific factual findings made by Judge Ideman regarding Lynch’s conduct. It is that specific conduct of lying to the judge that led to the dismissal of this case,” Re said.

At a court hearing last December, Ideman said Lynch’s “misconduct was extremely premeditated; it was repeated over and over again over a period of weeks and even months.”

The reprimand could be significant because Isgro still faces charges including racketeering, mail fraud and undisclosed payola payments to radio stations.

In September, 1992, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Ideman’s dismissal of the charges against Isgro, saying recent Supreme Court decisions restricted the ability of federal judges to dismiss cases because of prosecutorial misconduct.

The appeals court suggested that Ideman consider sanctioning in lieu of dismissing the case. Ideman said at a subsequent hearing that he disagreed with the 9th Circuit but was bound to reinstate the charges against Isgro.

However, in December, Ideman took other action that was almost as severe as dismissing the case. He ruled that in a new trial scheduled for later this year the government could not present any testimony from DiRicco. Moreover, Ideman told prosecutors they could not call any new witnesses, who might fill in critical holes created by DiRicco’s absence.

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The government has appealed that decision. In a brief filed last week, the government refers to the reprimand of Lynch in a footnote.

The Times was unable to reach the current lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Atty. Drew Pitt. Neither his conduct nor that of anyone else in the Los Angeles U.S. attorney’s office has been called into question.

Weinstein reported in Los Angeles, Ostrow in Washington.

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