Wilson to Return Contribution From Swindler

Gov. Pete Wilson, putting potential problems from his past behind him quickly as he runs for President, has decided to refund $8,000 in campaign contributions made to his gubernatorial campaigns by convicted swindler William E. Cooper.

The decision, disclosed Monday by one of Wilson’s attorneys, is the first response from the current and former elected officials who were asked last week by clients of Cooper’s defunct companies to return the donations.

The contributions came from “money stolen from investors,” according to a letter sent by an ad hoc committee of customers who lost $136 million in the April, 1994, collapse of Cooper’s Orange County-based First Pension Corp. and related companies. The letters went to 28 current and former elected officials.

“These people got shafted through no fault of their own,” and Wilson doesn’t want money that belongs to people other than contributors, said Vigo (Chip) Nielsen, counsel to the Pete Wilson Committee.

Other politicians, although they have not yet received the letters, have indicated they would be willing to refund Cooper’s contributions to the bankrupt companies so the funds could be repaid to investors.

“I would not be disinclined to return the funds, given the circumstances,” said Orange County Supervisor Gaddi M. Vasquez, who received at least $2,000 from Cooper. “I would want to review the letter and our records and make sure that they are consistent.”

U.S. Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) said through a spokesman that, providing federal election rules allow it, he will refund the $1,000 the investors are seeking and will look to see if Cooper gave him more money, which he said he would also return. Cox is also named in a suit by First Pension investors because of the work he handled for the company while he was a private lawyer in the mid-1980s.

Nielsen said the letter simply spurred him to complete a refund that the governor had decided last October to make.

“Somebody in the campaign or the administration must have learned that there was some taint on this money, and we began dealing with the issue on instructions from the governor,” the lawyer said. “No one asked us to do this.”