Lynch Assails Garcetti’s New TV Spot

Challenger John Lynch said Monday that incumbent Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti ought to take a new television advertisement off the airwaves, asserting it’s a “sleazy attack ad” that distorts his record.

The ad, which began running Friday, shows Lynch’s face for the full 30 seconds. The soundtrack includes an announcer’s comments on the challenger’s role in the McMartin preschool case and the prosecution of financier Charles Keating. It concludes by saying that Lynch is “too risky to be D.A.”

Lynch protested Monday that the ad misleads voters about his supervisory role in those two emotionally charged cases. Urging station managers to pull the ads, Lynch called it “a pathetic attempt to scare people.”

Garcetti’s campaign staff said the ads are fair political comment and will stay on the air. “For 10 months this campaign has been about Gil,” said Garcetti’s campaign manager, Matt Middlebrook. “Now John’s sweating under the collar because, all of a sudden, it’s about him.”

Political analysts, meanwhile, said that the ad illuminates a classic campaign strategy. Garcetti is using TV to define a candidate--in this case, Lynch, and in the brief window of time before Lynch gets the chance to define himself with his own TV ads.

In fact, Lynch appeared at a press conference Monday wearing heavy TV makeup--explaining that he had just come from filming his own ad.

Traditionally, the TV strategy involves two parts. First, define yourself. Then define the opponent.

But because Garcetti is so well-known, perhaps the best-known district attorney in the nation since the failed prosecution of O.J. Simpson, it hardly seems necessary to define himself, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, the veteran analyst based at the Claremont Graduate School.

“So now the time has come to define Lynch,” Jeffe said.

But, Jeffe and other analysts cautioned, such a strategy bears a considerable risk. It’s bound to increase Lynch’s name recognition--an asset the challenger had precious little of until late last week, when the first green, black and white billboards and bumper stickers started popping up around the county.

It also serves as a signal that the Garcetti camp is taking Lynch seriously--and, in fact, may be quite worried about him, even though Garcetti, with $714,460 in the bank as of Sept. 30, has a 15-1 cash advantage over Lynch, who had $47,462, according to campaign disclosure forms.

“Obviously he’s scared to death of John Lynch,” said Dick Rosengarten, editor of California Political Week. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be going this heavily negative on the guy.”

It seemed unlikely, meanwhile, that stations would pull the ad.

“Mr. Lynch is barking up the wrong tree,” said Bill Emerson, manager of political sales at KNBC Channel 4. “Our hands are tied from censoring any political candidate’s ad unless they call for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government or use obscene, indecent or profane language.”

Garcetti’s ad opens with the assertion that Lynch “supervised the McMartin case” and “offered a secret plea bargain.”

The McMartin case centered on allegations of molestation at the family-run McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach. The case began in the fall of 1983 and ended in 1990 after what was at the time the longest and costliest criminal trial in history.

The Garcetti and Lynch camps traded barbs Monday over who, in fact, supervised the case. From 1984 to 1988, Garcetti served as chief deputy to Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner. An 18-month preliminary hearing began in 1984. Trial began in 1987.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lael Rubin said Monday, “I prosecuted the McMartin case and I reported directly to Gil Garcetti.” But Deputy Dist. Atty. R. Dan Murphy--now one of Garcetti’s three top aides and then director of “special operations”--said Monday that he had responsibility then for day-to-day supervision.

The trial ended in January 1990 with Peggy McMartin Buckey acquitted on all counts and the jury hung on 13 counts against her son, Ray Buckey.

By then, Garcetti was head deputy in Torrance. Reiner appointed Lynch--who was then a senior staffer in charge of all prosecutions downtown--to oversee the retrial of Ray Buckey, by then down to eight counts.

A second trial ended in July 1990 in a hung jury. A few days later, prosecutors dismissed those eight counts.

Asked Monday about a plea bargain, Lynch said, “There was no offer from me.” Asked if there had been an offer from the prosecution side, he said no.

But Ray Buckey’s attorney, Danny Davis, offered this account:

Prosecutors put forward an offer to settle the case in April 1990, before the second trial, Davis said Monday. Lynch attended the meeting at which the offer was made, he said. But, he added, the offer was conveyed by the two prosecutors actually assigned to the second trial, not by Lynch.

There was no debate Monday over Lynch’s role in the state prosecution of Charles Keating, the former Lincoln Savings & Loan operator convicted in December 1991 of 17 counts of securities fraud.

Lynch did oversee the case. The lead prosecutor in the courtroom was Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Hodgman.

The Garcetti ad says that Lynch “supervised the Charles Keating trial and was overturned. Now, Keating’s out of jail.”

Keating’s conviction was overturned six months ago by a federal judge, who said that Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito delivered flawed jury instructions. Keating won release from prison three weeks ago while awaiting a hearing on a new federal trial.

“We convicted Charles Keating, something Mr. Garcetti has no familiarity with,” Lynch said Monday, referring to the Simpson case. “That’s probably what confuses him in a high-profile case.”