Moore ‘Very Upset’ by Delay in $3,000 Payoff, Witness Testifies

Patricia Moore’s alleged bagman testified Monday that the former Compton councilwoman became angry when he returned empty-handed from an assignment to pick up a $3,000 payoff.

Joseph Spraggins, a contractor who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion, said Moore was “very upset” when he told her that businessman John Macardican was insisting on paying her directly.

“She couldn’t understand why all the song and dance when he already said he would pay,” Spraggins said.

What neither Moore nor Spraggins knew at the time was that Macardican was acting as a cooperating witness in the FBI’s probe of official corruption in Compton. All of their meetings with him were secretly taped.

Macardican, who was seeking City Council permission to construct a $250-million waste-to-energy conversion plant, was under orders not to make any payoffs through a middleman.

In a series of telephone calls and meetings that ensued, Moore haggled with Macardican and with undercover FBI agent Robert Kilbane about how she would be paid.

Finally, with Spraggins in tow, Moore gave an ultimatum, according to an FBI videotape played to jurors earlier in the trial.

“It’s Joe or nothing. I don’t want to keep going through it. I don’t want to keep hearing about it. I’m tired at this point and if you all aren’t serious about the project, then we need to just let it go.”

At that point, Kilbane, who was posing as the project’s financier, asked Moore and Macardican to leave the room and he gave Spraggins $3,000.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. John M. Potter, Spraggins testified that after they left the meeting he took the roll of bills out of his coat pocket and gave it to Moore.

“She counted it and put it in her purse,” he said.

Although she prevailed in that tug of war, Moore later came around to Kilbane’s view that middlemen, like Spraggins, could pose a threat if they ever decided to talk.

“Bob, sweetheart, do I understand, because you never know,” she told Kilbane weeks later during a videotaped meeting in which she received another $3,000 payment. The money was part of $50,100 that the prosecution has accused Moore of extorting from Macardican’s Compton Energy Systems while serving on the Compton City Council. Moore also is accused of extorting $12,000 from Compton Entertainment Inc., which was seeking approval for a card casino.

Through Spraggins’ testimony, the government also sought Monday to cast doubt on a defense contention that Moore was victimized by Stan Bailey, another undercover government operative used in the case.

Moore contends that Bailey, an ex-convict, passed himself off as a representative of Macardican’s company, became her lover and then deserted her after racking up several thousand dollars in charges on her accounts.

In some of the videotapes, Moore can be heard explaining that the first $3,000 was compensation for Bailey’s debts. At other times, she said he owed her $5,000 to $6,000.

Under questioning by Potter, Spraggins said that in his many private discussions with Moore she never mentioned any debts caused by Bailey’s spending.

The government has decided not to call Bailey to testify in its case, saying he was not a witness to any bribe solicitation or payment.

But the defense has subpoenaed Bailey and plans to devote considerable time to interrogating him as a hostile witness.