Alatorre Denies Using Drugs With Contractor or Aiding Him

Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre on Wednesday denied as “absolutely untrue” allegations that he repeatedly used cocaine with a contractor and convicted narcotics offender while helping him obtain local government contracts.

Responding to a story in The Times, the veteran Eastside lawmaker told reporters at City Hall that the newspaper’s story was based on unreliable sources and amounted to an “outrageous” attack on his character.

“It’s getting kind of old,” he said, “especially when I’ve made no secret of my past.”

In a statement of about three minutes, the councilman once again acknowledged a past substance-abuse problem, but insisted it is well behind him.

“I’m clean and sober and have been for a decade,” said Alatorre, who declined to take questions.

The article published Wednesday detailed his decades-long relationship with Julian G. Carrasco, who owned a waste hauling firm. The report included allegations by former Carrasco employees in court papers and interviews that the councilman repeatedly used cocaine with their boss during the early to mid-1990s.

The workers, who had little or no personal connection to Alatorre, offered eyewitness accounts of the lawmaker sniffing cocaine and emerging from Carrasco’s office with white powder on his clothes and nostrils.

During the same period, Alatorre intervened to help Carrasco obtain more than $2 million in public works contracts, according to interviews with civil servants.

Carrasco has said he has not used cocaine for years and that, although he is a “loyal friend” of Alatorre, he did not exploit the relationship for business gain.

Alatorre, in his City Hall statement Wednesday, also broadly denied the allegations. He said The Times “will print the word of anybody, or anyone that will talk to them, that will agree with their point of view. . . . The credibility of their sources, to me, [is] extremely questionable.”

One of those sources was the ex-foreman of Carrasco’s now-defunct JCI Environmental Services. He provided The Times with a signed declaration, saying that he would be willing to testify in court that he witnessed Alatorre snorting cocaine on Carrasco’s glass desktop.

Alatorre, in his City Hall statement, dismissed the declaration as meaningless.

“I don’t believe it’s worth the paper it’s written on,” the councilman said, “and consequently, to be very frank with you, neither is the Los Angeles Times.”

Alatorre closed his remarks with a sweeping defense of his 27 years in public office.

“I have a lot to be proud of, and I have a great many things that I have done for the community,” he said. “[I] fought to accomplish only one thing . . . to try and help people to be a part of the economic mainstream of this society. . . . I’m going to continue to do that.”

Speaking for the newspaper, communications director Laura Morgan described the article as “well-researched and well-documented. . . . The Times examines carefully and fairly the records of many political figures in the course of a year, including Councilman Alatorre.”

During the past year, The Times has published a number of stories examining the councilman’s personal finances and public actions--prompting ongoing corruption investigations by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service.

Throughout, Alatorre has insisted that he has acted properly and has often attacked the credibility of the newspaper’s sources. He continued that theme Wednesday, noting that many of the individuals named in the most recent story were “disgruntled” ex-employees of Carrasco’s firm, which filed bankruptcy in 1995.

Despite that contention, court records show that Alatorre’s office provided a warm letter of recommendation to one of the key witnesses alleging drug use by the councilman--Carrasco’s former secretary.

“She is responsible and of good conduct and character,” says the 1993 letter, which bears Alatorre’s signature.

The secretary, Beverly Vasquez-Bumgardner, said in a court document that she saw the councilman emerge from a “snorting session” at Carrasco’s office with “cocaine around his nostrils and all over his pants.”

She said “it was well known throughout the office staff that the councilman’s visits were for cocaine.”

The Times was not advised by Alatorre’s office of his midafternoon plan to speak to the news media. But Spanish-language station KVEA-TV Channel 52 provided the newspaper with an audiotape of his remarks.