Councilman’s Trial Opens With Clashing Views on Bribe

Four years after he accepted envelopes stuffed with cash from an FBI informant, Santa Ana City Councilman Ted Moreno’s political corruption trial opened Thursday with two vastly different explanations for what happened.

Assistant U.S. Atty. John Hueston described Moreno, 33, as a power-hungry politician who offered to approve a gas station’s beer and wine permit in exchange for $31,000 in political contributions.

But Moreno’s attorney said the councilman was entrapped by an overzealous FBI operation. Moreno refused to accept the payments for months, the defense contends, and finally caved in, bowing his head in shame and saying, “I hate this.”

In order to convict Moreno of extortion, the jury must find that he was not entrapped.

At issue is whether Moreno and several political supporters tried to gain a majority on the Santa Ana City Council in 1966 by shaking down local businessmen.

According to Hueston, Moreno used the cash donations to help the campaigns of two City Council candidates he needed to win a majority on the divided council. Moreno was reelected, but the candidates he supported lost.

“This case is about a politician who in his words wanted to own Santa Ana . . . a politician who betrayed the public’s trust by putting his vote up for sale,” Hueston said.

There were meetings in which Moreno talked in code, scribbled notes to avoid suspected “bugs” and took a businessman into a walk-in freezer to talk, Hueston said.

Moreno’s lawyer, Dean Steward, offered a contrasting account of the transactions between the councilman and gas station owner Victor Koshkerian. He told the jury that Koshkerian, working for an FBI salary, approached Moreno with bribe offers and hounded him for six months until Moreno caved in.

On secret FBI video and audio tapes, Steward told jurors, “you’re going to hear Mr. Koshkerian constantly pushing Mr. Moreno.” The tapes include Moreno’s refusals, he said.

When he finally accepted the money, his attorney said, Moreno can be heard saying, “I hate this. I’m not used to doing this.”

Former Councilman Tony Espinoza and failed council candidates Roman Palacios and Hector Olivares have pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with the alleged scheme. Palacios is expected to testify during Moreno’s trial.

A federal grand jury indicted the four politicians in 1998 after a two-year investigation. In addition to extortion, Moreno faces money-laundering, mail fraud and other charges.

The prosecutor said Moreno solicited donations from Koshkerian after a “chance meeting” in the men’s room at Santa Ana City Hall.

“You will never get that beer and wine license with the current Santa Ana City Council,” Moreno told Koshkerian, Hueston said.

During a taped meeting, the prosecutor said, Moreno said: “The four of us will get in if it’s my last breath. You will get what you wanted.”

Moreno is in the final months of the four-year term he won during the 1996 campaign.