Aide to Dymally Charged in Alleged Scam

An aide to former Rep. Mervyn Dymally has been charged in connection with an alleged scam in which authorities say he stole $63,000 from 21 victims who paid him to obtain loans they never received.

Michael Jerome Robbins, 55, of Los Angeles, told the victims--most of whom live in the San Fernando Valley--that he would use his influence as Dymally’s aide to get them low-interest loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Deputy City Atty. Don Kass said.

Robbins told the victims--who paid him $3,000 apiece--that the loans were part of an SBA program offering 4% interest rates to businesses that hired residents of neighborhoods affected by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Kass said. The SBA, Kass said, never had any such program.

Robbins was charged Monday with 18 counts of grand theft in Los Angeles Municipal Court, City Atty. James K. Hahn said. He will be arraigned April 27. Each count is punishable by a $1,000 fine or a year in jail.

Hahn said Robbins was working at the time as a special assistant to Dymally (D-Los Angeles), who has since retired. Hahn said there is no evidence that Dymally was involved in the scheme, which Robbins allegedly operated in 1992 through International Management Consultants, a Beverly Hills-based company.