High Court Refuses to Hear Ex-Legislator’s Appeal of Conviction

The Supreme Court rejected the appeal of former California legislator Frank Hill, convicted of political corruption for taking $2,500 from an undercover FBI agent.

The court, without comment Monday, let stand Hill’s 1994 conviction for extortion and money laundering.

His appeal said federal prosecutors had failed to prove an “explicit” criminal agreement because “the alleged agreement is proved only by circumstantial evidence . . . consistent with innocence as well as guilt.”

Hill, once a Republican assemblyman from Whittier, was one of five legislators snared in an FBI investigation of state Capitol corruption in the mid- to late-1980s.

A jury determined that Hill accepted a $2,000 speaking fee in exchange for enlisting Republican support for a bogus bill introduced as part of an FBI sting operation.

The FBI investigation also resulted in the jury convictions of state Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-Whittier) and former Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress), later a member of the state Board of Equalization. Forner Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) and Assemblyman Patrick Nolan (R-Glendale) pleaded guilty in exchange for reduced sentences.

In the appeal, lawyers for Hill said the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld his conviction ignored past Supreme Court decisions requiring proof of a “quid pro quo” exchange in political corruption cases.

“The danger that innocent political activity might form the basis of a political corruption prosecution is not speculative,” the appeal said. It added that the evidence against Hill never established “an explicit agreement . . . to trade official action for money.”

Hill’s appeal also contended that the FBI’s action “threatens to profoundly alter the delicate federal-state balance” because the undercover investigation manipulated state government.