Aide Testifies He Laundered Casino Payoffs for Moore

Patricia Moore’s longtime campaign manager testified Tuesday that he laundered payoffs to her from backers of a card casino in Compton, and once delivered $10,000 in cash to her from the city’s commercial waste hauler.

“I was used, I feel betrayed,” Basil Kimbrew told a federal court jury in the former Compton councilwoman’s extortion trial.

Moore is accused of extorting $12,334 from Compton Entertainment Inc., backers of the casino, and $50,100 from Compton Energy Systems, which was seeking permits to build a waste conversion plant in the city.

As a community activist before her election to office in 1989, Moore led a successful campaign against a card casino, contending that it would contribute to crime and social decay.

But in the summer of 1992, Kimbrew testified, Moore, by then a councilwoman, told him that she was prepared to trade her vote for money.

Acting on Moore’s instructions, Kimbrew said he told Michael Aloyan, Compton Entertainment’s co-owner, that if he wanted the card club, he would have to pay $5,834 air fare for a trip that Moore was planning to Africa.

Aloyan, who also testified Tuesday, said he felt that he had no choice but to pay after being reminded by Kimbrew of Moore’s earlier success at blocking a card casino in the city.

“If I buy the tickets, she’s gonna vote yes. If I don’t, she’s gonna fight it,” was the message he said he got from Kimbrew.

Moore also directed how the money was to be paid, Kimbrew said. The casino backers were instructed to write a check to Kimbrew for nonexistent consulting services. Kimbrew then cashed the check and gave the proceeds to Moore, he said.

The first vote on the casino proposal was held Sept. 1, 1992, after a heated debate on whether to grant Compton Entertainment exclusive negotiating rights with the city. Although the measure passed, Moore absented herself during the voting, a fact that angered Aloyan who said he expected a yes vote for his money.

In November 1992, Aloyan and Kimbrew both testified, Moore solicited another $5,000 from Compton Entertainment, this time for a trip to New York and Washington. Aloyan said he arranged for a $5,000 check to be paid to Kimbrew, again as a so-called consultant.

“If I didn’t pay, she would kill the project,” which still had hurdles to clear, he testified.

The scenario was repeated again in 1993, Aloyan and Kimbrew said, but this time Kimbrew said that Moore “went crazy” when she received a $1,500 check made payable to her mayoral campaign. The check was never deposited.

Kimbrew said Moore sent him back to get another check from Compton Entertainment, this one written to him. He said he deposited it into his account and gave her the cash.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. John M. Potter, Kimbrew also told of a $10,000 cash payment that he delivered to Moore from Kosti Shirvanian, founder and chairman of Western Waste Industries, which holds an exclusive contract to haul commercial waste in Compton.

In 1989, Kimbrew said, Moore sponsored a benefit concert in Compton that ran into financial problems and solicited help from Shirvanian. Kimbrew said Shirvanian gave him an envelope containing $10,000 in cash, which he gave to Moore. Much later, he said, he discovered from examining the books that the money never made its way into the charity event’s coffers.

Kimbrew also told the jury that Moore had confided to him that she was on a retainer from Western Waste Industries of $1,500 to $3,000 a month.

In 1994, Moore negotiated a deal with the government after learning that she was under investigation. In return for leniency, she agreed to cooperate in the FBI’s investigation of official corruption in Compton. She wore a hidden body recorder in meetings with Shirvanian and other figures in the probe. She later backed out of the deal and withdrew a guilty plea to two criminal counts.

No charges were ever filed against Western Waste, but the FBI recently reactivated its investigation of the Torrance-based waste hauler, the largest in Southern California.

On Tuesday, federal agents served subpoenas for all Riverside County government records concerning Western Waste and its huge El Sobrante landfill near Corona, according to county sources.

Western Waste has been lobbying the Riverside County Board of Supervisors for permission to expand the capacity of the landfill from 8 million to 108 million tons.

Sources there said the FBI has subpoenaed campaign records and conflict-of-interest statements of board members and their deputies.