Robles Defense Is Sticks, Stones

Criminal attorneys for South Gate Treasurer Albert Robles never denied that the city official had said he wanted to kill people.

Their defense was simple: That’s politics in South Gate.

It worked. A judge declared a mistrial last week after jurors could not agree on whether Robles had committed crimes by threatening people, including two state lawmakers.

Call it tough talk. Call it threats. Political discourse in this mostly Latino, working-class city of 96,000 people is anything but civil.

Critics say Robles, employing three allies on the five-member City Council, rules South Gate through fear and intimidation. The 37-year-old Robles unleashes profanities, in Spanish and English, over the telephone, in city conference rooms and across crowded restaurants.

Usually, he gets his way.

After Robles’ arrest on felony threat charges last spring, the council voted to make him the deputy city manager and pay him an annual salary of $111,000. They also ordered the city to pay his legal bills, now in the six figures, even though South Gate is one of the poorest municipalities in Los Angeles County.

A judge earlier this year barred him from the Police Department after prosecutors said he had intimidated several police witnesses.

During his trial this month, Robles was accused of having threatened to rape state Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier) and kill her husband. Escutia testified that she was so afraid, she has set foot in South Gate only once in nearly two years, even though she represents the city in Sacramento. She also had arranged for personal bodyguards.

Robles told a friend of state Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles) that he wanted to take the lawmaker to Tijuana, put him the trunk of a car and “blow his brains out.” Firebaugh testified that he had been assigned special state security after the threats.

Robles said those things, his attorneys acknowledged, but it was just talk -- protected speech against political enemies.

“I guess that’s exactly, unfortunately, what we expect from politicians of this country from time to time,” said George B. Newhouse, a city attorney, at one court hearing.

Robles’ legal team, headed by Thomas Brown, has spent nearly $1 million in city money -- at a pace equal to 10% of the city’s annual budget -- to represent Robles in the treasurer’s legal troubles.

Robles’ admirers like his passionate and blunt manner. He is an eloquent speaker who portrays himself as the little guy in David-and-Goliath battles. He said Escutia and Firebaugh filed complaints against him because he had defeated their efforts to build a power plant in South Gate.

The man heading Robles’ prosecution, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, has said that Robles pointed a hand at Cooley like a gun during a recent conference of public officials. Robles denied it.

On a TV broadcast, Robles called Escutia “a pig.”

The judge declared the mistrial after jurors could not agree on charges that Robles had threatened Escutia; her husband, Leo Briones; Firebaugh; and a South Gate police lieutenant. None of the alleged threats was made directly to its target. They were relayed by other people. Robles’ attorneys denied that any verbal threats had been made against the police lieutenant.

Prosecutors have not decided whether to retry Robles on the threat charges. He still faces two illegal weapons charges in a separate trial after police found numerous weapons at his home this spring, including a semiautomatic assault rifle.

Robles did not comment after the mistrial. Mayor Xochilt Ruvalcaba said the declaration was a victory for the city treasurer. “Clearly, the jury’s message was a strong indication they understood this case was politically motivated and without merit,” she said.

Others said it is just another chapter in weary saga.

“It’s embarrassing to residents,” said City Councilman Hector De La Torre, a Robles critic. “It’s making us look like some Third World, petty dictatorship where all kinds of political intrigue and craziness is going on all the time.”

Many South Gate residents have had it with Robles. They have collected about 8,000 signatures to recall him and his council allies. They are backed by police unions, which have accused Robles and the council of trying to interfere with the department. In response, the council has moved to disband the force and bring in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to police the city.

City officials raised so many obstacles to the recall effort in the last year that Secretary of State Bill Jones helped push legislation to take the matter out of their control.

“The voters of South Gate confront some of the most serious allegations of official misconduct and voter intimidation that I have ever seen,” Jones said this fall. “I’m committed to making certain that the people of South Gate can freely, fully and without intimidation or corruption, exercise their right to recall.”

Robles, Ruvalcaba, Vice Mayor Raul Moriel and Councilwoman Maria Benavides face a Jan. 28 recall election.

Their critics say the Robles coalition is now trying a different campaign strategy. The council in December has offered a month of free trash service and unveiled a plan for a variety of free medical services at a new city health clinic.

Hundreds of people have been lining up at City Hall to participate in the city’s first-ever “New Year’s Dream Home Raffle.” One lucky resident, at a special council meeting in January, will be picked as the winner of a new, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home.

At the city’s annual Christmas parade, Robles, surrounded by children, rode down the city’s main street in a Cadillac convertible, waving and wishing hundreds of residents a merry Christmas.

Some residents interviewed Friday said they had not been won over by the council’s new generosity or by prosecutors’ failure to convict Robles.

“He shouldn’t be using that kind of language,” said Moises Rodriguez, a senior citizen who has lived for more than 20 years in South Gate, which is in the southeast corner of the county, straddling the Long Beach Freeway. “I don’t like the kind of person he is.”

“He’s supposed to be setting an example,” said another resident. “Instead, it’s like having thugs running the city. You’re going to threaten somebody because they don’t agree with you?”

Two of Robles’ political opponents have been victims of violent attacks. His political enemy, City Councilman Henry Gonzalez, was shot in the head in 1999. Gonzalez suffered minor injuries. Two years later, the vans of another political opponent were firebombed. Both crimes remain unsolved, and Robles has never been named a suspect.

During the weeklong trial, which ended Thursday, the central issue was not whether Robles made threatening statements, but whether the statements had frightened the recipients, and therefore amounted to a crime.

Jurors questioned why Firebaugh had waited months before asking for police protection after hearing that Robles had said he wanted to kill him. Some jurors said they agreed with defense arguments that such fiery language was part of the political landscape.

Even if Robles is ousted in the January recall election, he is already preparing for his next office. He has filed papers to run for the South Gate City Council in the March election.

“He is relentless. He will not stop.... It’s the eleventh hour, 55th minute, and he will not stop,” said South Gate Police Department Sgt. Richard Wade, a recall worker.