Withdrew Pleas to Clear Name, Moore Says : Investigation: Ex-Compton councilwoman was being called a traitor for deal with prosecutors, her attorney says.

Former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore wants to “tell her story and clear her name,” and that is why she has withdrawn her guilty pleas to charges of extortion and failing to file an income tax return, her lawyer said Tuesday.

“She knows the risks, but it means more to Pat that everyone knows exactly what happened and why it happened,” said Ollie P. Manago, her attorney.

Moore, who gained national prominence as an outspoken advocate on African American issues, pleaded guilty last November to a single count of extorting $9,100 in November, 1991, from a representative of a company that wanted to build a state-of-the-art trash incinerator in Compton.

As part of the plea arrangement, her attorney confirmed, Moore had agreed to be a key witness on behalf of the prosecution in the federal bribery trial of Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton), who is under indictment for allegedly soliciting bribes from the same company.

Tucker, formerly Compton’s mayor, has proclaimed his innocence. He is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 5.

But on Tuesday, Manago insisted that Moore never intended to implicate Tucker, adding that it was the stress of being “widely regarded as a traitor” to the popular congressman that prompted Moore’s change of heart about testifying.

Describing Moore’s spirits as “very, very low,” Manago said that in the four months since entering the guilty pleas Moore has received numerous death threats from people “who mistakenly believe that Pat had sold Tucker out in order to save herself.”

“She rarely leaves her house,” Manago said. “She’s become an exile in her own town.”

Moore declined to be interviewed. Manago, who became Moore’s lawyer two weeks ago, said that her client has very little money and that Moore’s supporters hope to open a legal defense fund on her behalf by next week.

The extortion count, a felony, carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Moore’s plea to failing to file a federal tax return in 1992 is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $25,000 fine.

Manago portrayed the former councilwoman as a victim of a racist campaign by the FBI to discredit black elected officials in Compton during a six-year investigation of alleged political corruption. And she repeated an accusation she leveled Monday against federal prosecutors, whom she contends pressured Moore into entering the plea arrangement.

Prosecutors have denied that any undue pressure was exerted, saying they will not oppose Moore’s motion to withdraw her plea.

Manago said that Moore looks forward to her day in court, saying that a trial would give her the chance to “take a look at a federally directed sting operation that includes entrapment, physical and emotional abuse and intimidation” on the part of the government and its agents.

Among other things, Manago said a trial will show how Moore was sexually abused by an FBI informant who played a key role in the government’s investigation of Moore and several other current and former Compton politicians.

The federal government used the informant to recruit Moore, and then used information he obtained after Moore and the informant became romantically involved, Manago said.

“It’s easy for this man who is on your arm and in your bed to encourage you to do things you probably wouldn’t have done if you had been thinking for yourself,” Manago said.

Federal prosecutors have declined to identify the person from whom Moore had admitted extorting money. But sources have told The Times that it was San Gabriel Valley businessman John Macardican, who triggered the federal investigation after complaining that Compton officials had solicited him for bribes in connection with the incinerator project.

Moore has acknowledged having had a relationship with Stan Bailey, who presented himself as an official of Macardican’s company and whom several sources have identified as the informant. Prosecutors have declined to discuss Bailey.

Moore and Tucker were part of a City Council majority that in July, 1992, approved an exclusive negotiating agreement for Macardican’s company to develop the incinerator. After the vote, Macardican never pursued the project.

Sources have told The Times that besides the incident in which Moore had admitted extorting the money, investigators have video and audiotapes of other meetings in which Moore accepted or discussed bribes.

But Manago, who described Moore’s future as ruined as long as she remains under suspicion, said it was “her desire to clear her name and not be recalled wrongly as the one who went to the choir-room on Tucker, so to speak, that made her decide to face the charges head-on.”

“(The prosecutors) have told me they have a truckload (of evidence) against her,” Manago said. “They didn’t say what kind of truck.”