Ex-FBI Agent Says He Gave Check to Hill : Courts: Undercover officer testifies in state senator’s political corruption trial. He says the legislator was given $2,500 in exchange for his influence.

A former undercover FBI agent testified Tuesday that he handed a $2,500 check to state Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier) in exchange for the legislator’s help in persuading then-Gov. George Deukmejian to back a 1988 special interest bill.

“The check was specifically for his (Hill’s) influence with the governor,” George W. Murray told jurors at Hill’s federal political corruption trial.

When Murray gave the check to Hill, the agent was posing as an Atlanta businessman seeking passage of a bill that would help him locate a shrimp processing plant in West Sacramento.

Federal prosecutors called Murray to the stand in an effort to back their contention that Hill, then an assemblyman, was part of a conspiracy to illegally extort money from the bogus businessman.

Hill has pleaded not guilty to charges of extortion, conspiracy and money laundering.

Murray described Hill to the jury as his “facilitator” who would get the bill “past the governor’s veto.” Alerted that it was part of an FBI sting, Deukmejian had vetoed a similar bill two years earlier.

Under cross-examination, Murray, now in private industry, said the $2,500 check to Hill was not made payable to anyone. He acknowledged that by leaving the payee space blank, he was testing to see what Hill would do with the money and whether he would disclose the payment to the IRS.

When the check was cashed, it had been made out to “Frank Hill--honorarium.” Murray testified that Hill failed to give a speech even though the money was purportedly for a speaking fee.

Hill received the funds in June, 1988, during an hourlong meeting with Murray at his suite in the Hyatt hotel near the Capitol. Hill was accompanied at the meeting by Karin L. Watson, a special assistant to then-Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale.

In a soft drawl, Murray, who spent 24 years with the FBI, told jurors he was concerned during the session that questions from Watson about his background might blow his cover.

“Frankly, it scared me to death,” Murray testified. So, the retired agent said, he mixed real-life events as military service in Vietnam with fiction to make Watson believe he was really an entrepreneur.

Prosecutors sought to use Murray’s testimony to corroborate statements by Watson, who pleaded guilty to felony extortion and is cooperating with the government in exchange for a light sentence.

On Tuesday, Watson wrapped up seven days on the stand as the government’s central witness against Hill and co-defendant Terry E. Frost, a former legislative aide who is charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.

Watson acknowledged that when the investigation surfaced publicly she complained about how the FBI grilled her and called the agents “bastards.” But Watson said she was upset, stung at becoming immersed in an investigation that cost her her job.

“I had a wonderful career that I very much loved,” she said. “I lost all that and my friends.”

The trial resumes today.