Casino Sued Over Alleged Contributions

The Fair Political Practices Commission is suing California’s largest poker casino, the Commerce Club, over political contributions the club allegedly made last year to defeat a ballot measure that would have established a rival casino just a few miles away in Pico Rivera.

The lawsuit alleges that the club failed to report “independent expenditures” on a campaign and that it was late in disclosing other contributions to two committees.

Southern California’s card clubs have dabbled in local and state politics for years, typically with campaign contributions to an array of candidates involved with regulation of the gambling industry.

But rarely have the clubs faced such a dangerous political climate as they did last year. Five Southern California cities considered ballot measures that would have established competing card parlors--and a possible loss of market share for the dominant clubs, the Commerce Club in Commerce and the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens.

The two southeast Los Angeles card casinos poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into efforts to defeat the measures. After a series of bitter campaigns, the only measure to win approval was in Hawaiian Gardens. The Pico Rivera measure was defeated by 267 votes out of 8,475 cast.

State officials and attorneys for the Commerce Club are in settlement talks, according to the commission. Club President George Tumanjan did not return repeated phone calls, but club attorney Andy Schneiderman said: “We deny that we violated [the Political Reform Act]. We’re trying to resolve this with the FPPC.” He would not discuss the specific allegations in the state’s complaint.

The Commerce Club’s local political campaign last was spearheaded by its own committee, the Southern California Voter Education Project, run by Don Wilcox, the club president’s son-in-law. Campaign documents filed last year showed the committee spent $296,000 to battle ballot measures in Azusa, Irwindale and Hawaiian Gardens.

But in documents filed months after the elections--and, the commission alleges, in apparent violation of its filing deadlines--that the Commerce Club disclosed that it made $39,120 in “nonmonetary” contributions to a Pico Rivera committee run by Richard Ochoa, a local pastor who scorned the supporters of a new club as “up to their necks in deception.” Nonmonetary contributions can include a range of materials and services, such as printed signs or legal work.

The committee, Just Say No to Casinos, organized citizens to staff a phone bank and handed out literature (“Don’t let the casino promoters deceive us any more,” one flier read).

But the committee did not report any contributions from the club, and its founder denies any affiliation with the casino.

“Just to set the record straight, I have never had any dealings with the Commerce Club or any other card club,” Ochoa said in an interview. “For me to receive contributions would be hypocritical.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the Commerce Club did not disclose that it contributed to another Pico Rivera committee, Save Our City, which sent mailers warning of the “wicked web” of narcotics traffic and loan-sharking that would ensnare the city if a casino was approved. Commerce Club documents don’t show any contributions were made to the committee, and Save Our City’s documents don’t show that any money was received from the club.

However, Hal Mintz, who has worked as a consultant for the Commerce casino, contributed $3,000 to Save Our City. After inquiries from The Times, the committee filed an amended statement showing that Mintz’s firm, Stateside Communications, actually contributed a total of $19,360 to the campaign, most of it in nonmonetary forms.

Mintz, citing advice from his attorney, declined to comment on the case. Save Our City officials were not available.

Supporters of the Pico Rivera casino measure have said they were puzzled by the fact that the Commerce Club reported spending so little to defeat the initiative, while the Bicycle Club of nearby Bell Gardens spent more than $97,000 through two committees.

Real estate developer Michael E. Macke, who planned to develop a Pico Rivera casino, has sued the Bicycle Club over alleged unfair political practices in the campaign. Because the commission has filed suit against the Commerce Club, Macke is precluded from suing it for campaign-reporting violations.

The club paid tens of thousands of dollars to organizations that warned voters that gambling was a sin. Records show the club spent $43,202 on legal services for Bell United to Regulate Card Clubs, a committee that fought unsuccessfully to pass a city ordinance that would limit the number of casinos allowed in Bell. The Rev. Martin Garcia, who ran the committee, said he did not know his lawyer was paid by the Commerce Club, and wouldn’t have accepted legal assistance had he known.

The club also paid $20,000 to the Rex Company, a political consulting firm that helped defeat a casino ballot measure in Irwindale. The Rex Company is owned by Stephen R. Sheldon, the son of the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition.

The Commerce casino was first thrust into controversy in 1984, just one year after it opened. Four officials from the city of Commerce pleaded guilty to charges that they granted the license to open the club to a Las Vegas executive who had bribed them with secret shares of the business.

In 1993, an internal audit by the club found that board members received kickbacks, and employees said they had been reimbursed by the casino for contributions they had made to the campaigns of Gov. Pete Wilson and Lt. Gov. Gray Davis.

Today, with a Sacramento lobbyist on its payroll and tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to candidates from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to county Supervisor-elect Don L. Knabe, the Commerce Club has built a name as a powerhouse in casino politics.

In Sacramento, its focus has been on issues such as which card games should be allowed and whether to fund a state gambling commission.