Political Probe Costs Anaheim a Lot for a Little

The special prosecutor flew into Orange County with an unprecedented mandate to clean up alleged political corruption in this city. His fee: $250 an hour.

But when Ravi Mehta started filing criminal charges and lawsuits, the revelations he turned up were not exactly the stuff of Watergate or Whitewater. There was the failure to itemize a Visa bill on one campaign contribution report, the missing employer addresses on another and a third report filed three days late.

So far the probe has cost the city $37,500 in fees and an undetermined amount in expenses for Mehta, who recently left the helm of the state Fair Political Practices Commission amid controversy. The meter is still running.

But the Orange County district attorney’s office and FPPC officials question whether Mehta has the legal jurisdiction to bring charges at all. No other city or county in California has ever hired a special prosecutor to investigate suspected campaign finance violations, according to the FPPC.

Political reform advocates, normally the first to demand full disclosure of campaign finances, say the criminal probe is punishing honest politicians who made minor errors, and could discourage good people from running for political office.

“There is just not a candidate in the state of California that could not be run up the flagpole for leaving out the occupations of some contributors’ employers on a report, and the way this sort of thing is always handled is by the FPPC, not in the courts,” said veteran Orange County political watchdog Shirley Grindle.

“Instead, they are spending Anaheim taxpayer money on Ravi Mehta for the hours he spends on the phone and on the plane from his place in Sacramento? It’s just a damn joke,” said Grindle, a figure in campaign finance reform since the 1970s, when she wrote the first countywide political reform initiative.

‘Charges Have to Be Filed’

Mehta does not blanch at the criticism. A former Orange County prosecutor, he was chairman of the FPPC until August, when he left after questioning the constitutionality of Proposition 208. The landmark Political Reform Act imposes stricter fund-raising and spending limits on campaigns. The FPPC is responsible for implementing the measure.

Mehta defends his Anaheim investigation as simply upholding the law. Whether the reported violations are minor, he said, is not the point.

“When you are asked to review something and you see violations, unless you want to overlook the violations, the charges have to be filed,” Mehta said. “If I believe there are violations and I believe they are worth looking into and worth being prosecuted, I intend to file them.”

Mehta has declined to comment on the fees he is receiving and on whether he expects to file more charges.

Since October, when Mehta was hired with the approval of just two members of the Anaheim City Council to probe and prosecute suspected campaign finance law violations in the 1996 council election, his charges have consumed city government.

Mayor Tom Daly and former Councilman Irv Pickler are in negotiations with Mehta, who has threatened to file criminal charges against them if they do not pay fines he has set. A source close to the talks said the fines are $10,000 or more.

Daly and Pickler were accused by Anaheim welfare reform activist Candace Nunno of working together to make campaign contributions to two other city candidates that exceeded donation limits. City Atty. Jack L. White called the allegations unfounded.

This month, Mehta negotiated a $6,500 settlement with Councilwoman Shirley McCracken, who called her offense--omitting employment information of donors on one campaign report--the inadvertent error of a time-pressed volunteer. She said she does not have the money to fight Mehta in a lengthy court proceeding.

Another former councilman, Frank Feldhaus, and leaders of the Anaheim Firefighters Assn. Political Action Committee face possible jail time after Mehta filed criminal charges against them in Municipal Court in Fullerton for allegedly committing similar errors.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anybody filing criminal charges on this kind of small stuff,” said Bob Stern, one of the co-authors of Proposition 208 and now an analyst with the Los Angeles-based Center for Government Studies, a private campaign reform organization.

“I mean, come on. It sounds like it’s overkill.”

Mehta has his defenders.

Councilman Bob Zemel, who pushed for Mehta’s appointment over the objections of most of the council, said: “I can’t believe that the attention is not on the violations but on who’s prosecuting them. If there are violations, well, doggone it, let’s just fix ‘em.”

Councilman Lou Lopez, who is eyeing a possible run for supervisor against Daly, said the money being spent on Mehta’s investigation is worth it.

“This is a small amount to make sure the citizens know that candidates are competing on an even plane during an election,” said Lopez, who asserts that in more than a dozen years in political life he has never made a mistake of any kind on his campaign reports.

“Lou Lopez plays by the rules. And if I play by the rules, why shouldn’t everyone else?”

Jurisdiction Questioned

Whether Mehta has legal authority to enforce those rules is one of the questions puzzling FPPC officials and political observers. Few challenge his right to file charges under Anaheim’s political reform ordinance, which allows a special prosecutor to act in lieu of the city attorney.

What FPPC officials and other election watchdogs say is less clear is whether Mehta has the jurisdiction to bring charges under the state Political Reform Act--which he has done in most of the actions he has filed.

That law prohibits appointed city attorneys or their surrogates from filing charges under it. Such charges, according to the act, must be brought either in court by the county district attorney or by a local resident, via a complaint with the FPPC. Mehta lives in Sacramento.

“It appears that according to the Political Reform Act, he does not have jurisdiction because he is neither a resident nor, by definition of the Political Reform Act, a district attorney, an elected city attorney or an FPPC official,” a senior FPPC official said.

The district attorney’s office is not investigating Mehta’s activities. But a senior official there called it unlikely that Mehta has the authority to prosecute the charges he has filed with the court.

Prominent political law attorney Fred Woocher also questioned Mehta’s actions, saying he has never heard of criminal charges on campaign finance violations being brought by anyone other than a district attorney.

Mehta cites a 1970s-era agreement between the county district attorney and Anaheim superseding that law. But the district attorney’s office says it is unaware of such an agreement.

“Well, bottom line is, they can litigate this in court,” Mehta said, if his authority to file the charges is in dispute. “Until they do, there’s nothing to talk about.”

Critics also question Mehta’s decision to pursue the filing errors through the legal system, rather than through the FPPC, which imposes hundreds of fines each year regarding similar violations. Many hundreds more are settled by having a candidate file amended campaign reports.

In each Anaheim case filed by Mehta, reports had been amended to correct the reporting errors.

“The law is designed to use fines and legal action judiciously, not for every violation,” said Isaac Elnecave, Los Angeles director of Common Cause, which monitors campaign finance violations statewide. “In the heat of a campaign, often mistakes are made.”

The disputes started in Anaheim in August, when White, the city attorney, charged that a conservative political group financed by gaming interests breached a city ordinance limiting campaign contributions in the 1996 race.

White’s misdemeanor complaint, lauded by Common Cause and other election monitors, charged that the Business and Taxpayers Good Government Committee, led by Stephen Sheldon, a lobbyist whose father heads the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, made $32,000 in illegal contributions.

Those contributions were reported months after the election and, the complaint said, might violate a city ordinance limiting individual donations to candidates and political committees to $1,000.

After those charges were filed, Zemel, a conservative who has announced a run for Congress against Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), cried foul. Zemel said White had moved against candidates supported by Republicans without investigating Democrats on the technically nonpartisan council.

During a contentious council debate, Zemel suggested the council hire Mehta to probe the finances of Daly and Pickler--two moderates--in the 1996 race. White, appointed by the council, had refused to file charges, saying that allegations against them were unfounded.

The same night, Zemel and Lopez voted to hire Mehta to investigate the allegations. McCracken voted against the action, and Daly and Councilman Tom Tait abstained, leaving their seats in disgust during the vote.

Ever since, Mehta has been in and out of court and meetings with Anaheim politicians on the minor violations he has turned up, taking early morning flights down from Sacramento on the city’s tab.

“I think that what’s happened in that city is unbelievable,” Woocher said.

“There were legitimate complaints filed by the city attorney, and then it just became people saying, ‘Well, if the moderates are accusing conservatives of wrongdoing then we’re just going to hire somebody to go after the moderates.’ But come on, obsessing at people’s Visa bills? It’s really misusing the process, and it looks purely political.”