Witness Ends Testimony in Tucker Trial : Court: Businessman John Macardican is a key in government’s case. He leaves stand having taken some lumps from defense.

Businessman John Macardican smiled broadly as he strode into a federal courtroom two weeks ago and took the stand as the government’s key witness in the extortion trial of Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton).

After working undercover for the FBI for four years, after wearing a concealed body recorder 450 to 500 times, he now was ready to tell his story--how his dream of building a $250-million waste-to-energy plant in Compton was killed because he repeatedly resisted demands for bribes.

With Macardican providing commentary, the prosecution unveiled to the jury its strongest evidence in the case: secretly recorded audiotapes and videotapes showing Tucker taking cash from Macardican while Tucker was mayor of Compton in 1991 and 1992.

The 38-year-old congressman is accused of extorting $30,000 from Macardican’s Compton Energy Systems and $7,500 from Murcole Disposal Inc., the city’s residential refuse collector, as well as soliciting $250,000 in kickbacks and failing to pay income taxes.

In one of the tapes, Tucker can be observed pocketing a bundle of cash and telling Macardican, “We’ll be friendly, definitely.” After another payment, he tells Macardican, “It feels good.”

On Tuesday, Macardican stepped down from the witness stand. He had told his story, but his demeanor was no longer ebullient.

During 3 1/2 days of cross-examination, the gray-haired, 57-year-old businessman often appeared combative, flustered and evasive as the defense sought to portray him as an overzealous government informant who manipulated Tucker into accepting illicit money.

Defense attorney Robert Ramsey Jr. aroused Macardican’s ire early in his cross-examination when he asked whether Macardican, a married man, had a romance with a woman employee.

“Please don’t insult me, Mr. Ramsey,” Macardican fired back. “I had a relationship with [her] like she was a sister.”

On another occasion, the defense lawyer misquoted an official transcript to say that Macardican had described himself as a “hustler.”

“That’s a cheap shot,” Macardican responded.

Ramsey withdrew the question, but never apologized.

Tucker does not deny he took cash from Macardican. His lawyers contend, however, that Tucker earned some of the money as an “adviser” to Macardican on dealings with the Compton school district while the remainder was intended to be campaign contributions but was made to look like bribes through illegal entrapment.

Entrapment, a major element in the defense case, is a frequently misunderstood concept, legal experts point out. There is nothing wrong with police setting up a trap or tricking someone.

However, the government cannot induce somebody to commit a crime that he would not otherwise have committed.

If a defendant claims entrapment, the government has to prove that the accused was predisposed to commit the crime. To prove predisposition, though, some federal courts have given prosecutors wide latitude to introduce otherwise inadmissible circumstantial and hearsay evidence about a defendant.

This could pose a problem for Tucker, a lawyer, who was fired from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and convicted of a misdemeanor in 1987 for altering evidence in a criminal case.

In his questioning of Macardican, Ramsey pounced hard on the entrapment issue, but Macardican repeatedly denied any plot to entrap Tucker or other Compton politicians.

“Before your first meeting with Mr. Tucker, didn’t you intend to entrap him?” asked Ramsey.

“Not true,” responded Macardican.

It was a question posed many times during Macardican’s cross-examination.

Although Macardican denied that the FBI had told him what to say or what to get Tucker to say, Ramsey produced the transcript of a tape-recorded exchange between Macardican and his FBI handler in which Macardican reports on a just-concluded meeting with Tucker, saying “I got him to say it and I got him to say it strong.” At another time on cross-examination, he said of his relationship with the FBI: “They told me what to do and I did it. I was a tool.”

Ramsey pressed Macardican to admit that he sought and obtained “advice” from Tucker, another element in the defense strategy.

Macardican, under questioning by the prosecution, denied he had ever retained Tucker as an adviser, lobbyist or lawyer.

However, Ramsey tried to show that Macardican repeatedly sought and received Tucker’s advice during their secretly recorded meetings.

Even when confronted with transcripts in which the word “advice” was used, Macardican remained steadfast. He described his remarks as “just words, just friendly words . . . I was trying to make him feel comfortable with me.”

At another point he said, “He was telling me. He wasn’t giving me advice.”

The defense tried to deny that Tucker did anything in return for some of the money he received from Macardican.

Prosecutors contend that Tucker accepted the $30,000 to secure his future vote on a conditional-use permit, for a letter to the Compton school board in support of the project and for a vote on the city’s community redevelopment board giving Macardican exclusive negotiating rights for the project.

The Compton school board figured in the project because Macardican was seeking to buy school district land as a site for his proposed plant.

Ramsey suggested that after Macardican made the first $10,000 payment to Tucker, the FBI sent him back to the mayor seeking an “exclusive negotiating agreement” from the city. This, he said, was because Macardican had failed to establish that Tucker had done anything in exchange for the $10,000. Macardican denied it.

Ramsey got Macardican to admit that he lied on occasion during his meetings with Tucker, including once when he said he had paid a $3,000 bribe to former Councilman Maxcy Filer in 1984.

Macardican tried to float his project then, but it was killed by the City Council. Filer was a member.

“I was lying. I never considered it a payoff,” Macardican admitted.

In subsequent exchanges over alleged untruths, Macardican said he wasn’t lying but merely “playacting” or “role-playing” with the mayor.

In addition to Tucker, the FBI investigation resulted in the indictment of Councilwoman Patricia Moore. She is scheduled to go on trial in January on charges of extorting bribes.

Tying to demonstrate that Macardican was bent on revenge against Compton officials, the defense elicited testimony from him that his project was killed in 1984 because he refused to pay a $50,000 bribe to then Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton).

Dymally, who has denied the allegation, was still in office when Macardican began cooperating with the FBI as an informant in 1990. As a “cooperating witness,” Macardican was paid about $50,000 over four years.

“So you were out to get Congressman Dymally in 1990, weren’t you?” asked Ramsey.

“I wasn’t out to get anybody,” Macardican answered.