Espy Cleared of 30 Charges of Corruption

After mounting no defense, former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy won acquittal Wednesday on 30 counts of corruption that stemmed from his acceptance of sporting event tickets, travel and other favors from interests he regulated. His attorney promptly called for changes in the independent counsel law.

The acquittal of the highest former Clinton administration official to face a jury capped a seven-week trial and a four-year, $17-million-plus investigation by Donald C. Smaltz, the Los Angeles attorney who served as independent counsel in the case.

An obviously relieved Espy, 45, President Clinton’s first Agriculture secretary and a former congressman from Mississippi, said outside the federal courthouse here: “It’s cost a lot. It’s been tough. But I knew from day one that I would stand here before you completely exonerated.”

Espy, whose lawyers denounced Smaltz’s case as “garbage,” complained of being “the target of an independent counsel, someone with all the money, all the power, very little supervision [and] no timetable.”

Smaltz, acknowledging disappointment with the verdict, said: “I believe the ends of justice have been served.” But in a prepared statement released later, he added: “If the investigation and prosecutions by our office dissuade corporations from giving gifts to their regulators--or the regulators from accepting gifts from those who are regulated--I believe that the costs we have incurred and the efforts we have expended are worth the price.”

A more measurable effect of the case, however, could come in how Congress acts on the independent counsel law when it expires next year. The law, which Congress could kill, curtail or simply renew, already has come under heavy fire from lawmakers disturbed by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s wide-ranging investigation of Clinton.

The president said in a statement that he was “pleased” by the verdict and “heartened” by Espy’s comment that the experience had strengthened him.

Smaltz called 70 witnesses in an attempt to portray Espy as a corrupt public official who accepted about $35,000 worth of gifts, gratuities, travel expenses and meals.

But in the courtroom, that portrait did not always emerge clearly. Many of Smaltz’s witnesses depicted Espy as a bright, ambitious official who made decisions based on merit and not to reward special interests in return for favors and gratuities.

Richard Douglas, a key prosecution witness and an African American friend of Espy’s from their college days in Washington, even turned on Smaltz in his testimony--a development that seemed to draw special attention from some members of the jury, 11 of whom were black.

Douglas, a former vice president and lobbyist for Sun Diamond Growers of California, told jurors that he agreed to be “a puppet” for Smaltz only after three years of “storm trooper” tactics by the independent counsel, who brought a number of felony charges against him. He pleaded guilty to one charge of making a false statement to the FBI.

“God knows, if I had $30 million, I could find dirt on you, sir,” Douglas angrily told Smaltz during one of many heated courtroom exchanges. Smaltz’s investigation actually totaled more than $17 million.

In testimony that delighted the defense, Douglas added that Espy was being held to a higher standard because he was the first African American ever chosen to head the Department of Agriculture.

Later in the trial, Smaltz showed flashes of anger, complaining to U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina that defense lawyers were exaggerating race in the trial, which he said had no bearing on the charges against Espy. Smaltz asked the judge to tell jurors that race could not be taken into account when they decided the case. Urbina denied his request.

After the verdict, Theodore Wells, one of Espy’s lawyers, contended that Espy would have been found not guilty anywhere.

Douglas was one of a succession of business executives who acknowledged giving Espy tickets to sporting events, such as the Super Bowl, the National Football League championship game as well as other athletic contests.

Douglas’ gifts to Espy were among the most expensive, including luggage valued at $2,400, a crystal bowl and $4,200 worth of tickets to the U.S. Open tennis tournament in 1993.

He said that he gave the gifts out of friendship and not because of any official act by Espy. Douglas, however, acknowledged that Sun Diamond reimbursed him for the gifts.

Under federal law, public officials are barred from accepting anything of value as a reward for past acts or in anticipation of future decisions. But the law permits officials to receive gifts from close friends or family members.

Smaltz succeeded in showing that Espy got gifts from companies and lobbyists who had business pending before his department. Trial testimony demonstrated, however, that many of Espy’s actions went against the same people and firms with whom he was friendly.

Although Espy’s trial began Oct. 1 with 38 separate charges, Urbina dismissed eight for lack of sufficient evidence after the prosecution concluded its case.

Espy’s lawyers never put on a defense. Instead they ridiculed the prosecution’s case as ill-founded, insubstantial and based largely on gestures of friendship. They acknowledged some poor judgment on Espy’s part but insisted that he never knowingly did anything wrong.

Defense attorneys Reid H. Weingarten and Wells told jurors that because of Espy’s historic role as the first black to hold his position, he was highly motivated to be the best secretary ever.

They argued that this, in turn, led him to concentrate so much on policy and trade issues that he sometimes erred when it came to his personal expenses. Any gratuities he accepted were “trivial, personal and entirely benign,” they said.

In his prepared statement, Smaltz noted that, since he was appointed on Sept. 9, 1994, his office has brought 15 criminal and civil cases against 14 individuals, seven companies and one law firm. The prosecutions have resulted in 15 convictions as well as fines and civil penalties exceeding $11 million.

Times staff writer Alan C. Miller contributed to this story.