Ex-Aide Gets Probation in Capitol Corruption Case : Courts: Karin Watson, a government witness who pleaded guilty five years ago, will avoid prison. She provided key testimony against Sen. Frank Hill.

Almost five years after pleading guilty to a political corruption charge, former Assembly Republican aide-turned-government-witness Karin Watson was sentenced Tuesday to three years probation and will not have to serve time in prison.

Watson, who provided key testimony against former GOP state Sen. Frank Hill of Whittier, was treated leniently because of her years as a cooperating government witness in the federal probe of corruption in the state Capitol.

Her decision in 1989 to cooperate with prosecutors and plead guilty to extorting $12,500 from an undercover FBI agent “turned her life upside down,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. John K. Vincent in urging the court to spare her from serving prison time.

“Once she agreed to cooperate with federal authorities,” Vincent said, “she was fired from her job at the Legislature, and her so-called friends at the Legislature began to act as if she never existed.”

In arguing for leniency before U.S. District Judge Edward J. Garcia, Vincent said his office viewed “Ms. Watson’s culpability as much less than that of the elected officials for whom she worked, who made extortionate activities she pled guilty to a requirement of her job.”

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Watson could have faced up to two years in prison and a $40,000 fine for her part in arranging $10,000 in campaign contributions for her ex-boss, former Republican Assembly leader Pat Nolan of Glendale, and a $2,500 payment to Hill.

However, Garcia agreed to forgo the fine and prison time for Watson, saying her cooperation “did subject her to much more (hardship) than is usually the case with cooperating government witnesses.”

In aiding the government, Watson, who now lives in the Chico area, also helped make the case against Nolan, who was charged with Hill. In February, Nolan pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. He is serving a 33-month term at a minimum security prison camp in Dublin, east of Oakland.

Hill, who resigned from the Senate this month, was convicted of using his office to extort a $2,500 honorarium from a businessman, who was in reality an undercover FBI agent. While awaiting his sentencing in September, Hill has asked that the verdict against him be reversed.

At the time Watson pleaded guilty, prosecutors recommended that she serve no more than six months in a halfway house rather than be sent to prison.

But Vincent made his pitch for an even lighter sentence, in part because of the long delay in seeking criminal indictments against Hill and Nolan--which had the effect of “leaving her in limbo for over five years.”

In addition to being shunned by friends, Watson and her husband suffered “some business setbacks, so they found themselves in rather dire economic straits,” Vincent said.

He also contrasted her predicament with other targets of the federal corruption probe who chose to fight the charges against them. In her case, Vincent said, “there has not been the outpouring of support for her from the Legislature and the lobbying corps as there was for (Capitol lobbyist) Clay Jackson.”

Jackson, who was convicted in December on 10 counts of racketeering, mail fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, is serving a 6 1/2-year sentence at the Dublin camp. He is appealing his conviction, and many prominent Capitol lobbyists have been raising money to help with his mounting legal bills.