Snyder’s Partner to Pay Fine in Campaign Probe : Politics: Gilbert Archuletta admits disguising illegal contributions, state says. He will pay $16,000.

The law partner of former Los Angeles Councilman Arthur K. Snyder has acknowledged repeatedly laundering illegal campaign contributions and has agreed to pay $16,000 in penalties, according to a tentative agreement disclosed Monday by state authorities.

Attorney Gilbert Archuletta, a onetime City Hall legislative analyst who joined Snyder as a lawyer-lobbyist in a Downtown firm, is the latest associate of the former Eastside councilman caught up in an unprecedented, three-year state and local probe of the workings of political fund raising in Southern California.

The investigations, conducted jointly by the state Fair Political Practices Commission and the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, have netted nearly $1 million in penalties, including the largest fine in U.S. political history for campaign donation violations.

In the tentative settlement announced Monday with the FPPC, Archuletta acknowledged violating campaign laws on eight occasions by concealing the true source of political contributions made to several Los Angeles City Council members and county Supervisor Michael Antonovich. Officials said there was no evidence that the officials knew the contributions were improper.

The donations between 1989 and 1991 involved about $5,000, and Archuletta acknowledged he was often reimbursed by a source--not identified in the agreement--with $100 bills.

Such money laundering is illegal because it circumvents limits on donations and conceals “essential information regarding who is supporting or opposing a particular candidate,” according to the agreement. It can also boost the influence of individuals who appear able to sell large numbers of tickets to campaign fund-raisers.

Daryl East, the FPPC’s chief of enforcement, declined to characterize the significance of Archuletta’s admissions, or say who investigators believe may be behind the money-laundering scheme.

“All I can say is the investigation is going to continue,” East said, adding that Archuletta is cooperating with investigators.

Several tentacles of the investigations have reached out to Snyder, touching relatives, clients and associates. But the colorful and controversial former councilman has not been charged, and fiercely denies any link to improper contributions, saying investigators are pursuing a vendetta against him.

On Monday, Mark Geragos, an attorney who represents both Archuletta and Snyder, downplayed the settlement, portraying it as a way for Archuletta to avoid a lengthy legal fight. “It was a fraction of the cost of (a legal) defense,” Geragos said. “And it ends two years of harassment of him.”

He denied that Snyder was the source of the cash reimbursement to Archuletta, or that the investigations and recent settlements suggest Snyder’s law offices, Snyder & Archuletta, are at the center of a “web of money-laundering” activity, as investigators suggested in court papers three years ago.

In August, the Taiwan-based Evergreen shipping firm, managed locally by Snyder’s brother-in-law, paid the largest U.S. campaign fine on record--nearly $900,000--for improperly funneling $172,000 to local and state politicians over a four-year period. In that case, investigators identified the former councilman’s wife, Delia Wu Snyder, as one of several middlemen in the scheme. But she has not been formally accused of wrongdoing.

Three months later, the controller in Snyder’s law firm, who officials alleged served as a conduit for illegal donations, admitted a series of violations and paid $38,000 in penalties, the second largest fine ever for an intermediary.

The state and city watchdog agencies have also charged Bell Cab Co., a Snyder client, with numerous counts of political money laundering that could lead to nearly $300,000 in fines.

Monday’s settlement, which is expected to be approved by members of the Fair Political Practices Commission next week, demonstrates that state and local investigators “are not on a vendetta,” said Benjamin Bycel, executive director of the ethics commission. “Mr. Archuletta took responsibility for it, (agreed to) pay a fine, and the investigation continues.”

As part of its broader probe of political fund raising in Southern California, the FPPC and the ethics panel have also been investigating alleged campaign money laundering by former employees of a firm with rights to stage the Los Angeles Marathon. William Burke, president of the firm, has denied knowledge of illegal contributions.