Casden Denies Breaking Campaign Finance Laws

The millionaire developer who wants to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team denied breaking any campaign finance laws Friday, insisting his contributions to city candidates have been legal.

Alan Casden said the search warrant served by prosecutors on his Beverly Hills business Thursday had been targeted at a vice president of the firm.

“We deny vehemently any violations of the law,” Casden said.

The district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit and the city Ethics Commission are investigating whether subcontractors or employees of Casden Properties were improperly reimbursed for campaign contributions made in the 2001 city elections, according to sources familiar with the probe.

The practice of reimbursing a contributor is known as political money laundering because it hides the true source of the contribution.

The district attorney’s office said searches had been conducted at four locations, including Casden Properties in Beverly Hills.

Casden confirmed that investigators had served a search warrant on the work station of John Archibald, a vice president of Casden Properties, and seized Archibald’s company computer. Prosecutors also served a search warrant at Archibald’s house in Simi Valley, where items that were seized included credit cards belonging to Archibald’s wife, Casden said.

Archibald could not be reached for comment.

Casden said district attorney’s officials had not searched his personal office or asked for any of his documents.

“They told us I am not the focus of any investigation,” Casden said.

Representatives of the district attorney’s office would not comment Friday on the focus of the investigation.

Archibald is identified in campaign finance reports as a senior vice president in charge of construction for Casden Properties. He and his wife contributed to the 2001 mayoral campaign of Kathleen Connell and to campaign committees for Council President Alex Padilla and Councilmen Eric Garcetti and Greig Smith.

In an interview Friday, Casden was adamant in denying any personal or corporate wrongdoing.

“That is ridiculous,” said Casden. “ We only make legal contributions.”

Casden and his company have contributed $213,000 to benefit candidates and causes in city contests during the last four years.

Many subcontractors for Casden Properties are listed in city records as contributors to city political campaigns, including Connell’s. Several subcontractors interviewed Friday, including the manager of a painting company in which eight employees donated $1,000 each to Connell, said there had been no reimbursements.

Another longtime subcontractor of Casden Properties, Howell Karabel of Imperial Shade, said he and four other family members each had given $1,000 to Connell because she is pro-business.

Karabel said two ethics investigators recently visited his office, subpoenaed the bank records of relatives and asked to talk to the wives of officers, who also had contributed to Connell. But Karabel said he told the investigators that there had been no reimbursement of the contributions and that he has not heard from them since.

“They are really fishing hard,” he said of the investigators. “They are going to 20 subcontractors all over the city.”

Connell said Casden did help raise money for her campaign, but she said she had not been aware of anything wrong with any contributions and had not been contacted by prosecutors.

As a candidate receiving thousands of checks from supporters, Connell said, it would be impossible to determine if a contributor was not the true source of the money.

“There would be no way to check all these people,” she said.

Casden said he is frequently asked for political contributions. He said he often asks his vendors and subcontractors to contribute too, a common practice in campaign fund-raising.

“We would have no way of knowing if they were not legally obtained,” Casden said. An officer of his firm reviews political donations and is responsible for making sure the company complies with campaign finance laws, Casden said.

“We have never been notified that any of our filings are incorrect,” Casden said.

Casden announced last month that he would like to buy the Dodgers and move the team’s home to a new stadium that would be built downtown. The developer said he would then raze Dodger Stadium and build housing on the 300-acre site. He is believed to have offered $400 million for the team.

Los Angeles City Hall has had a persistent problem with political money laundering over the years.

In addition to hiding the sources of donations, laundering also allows political patrons to circumvent the city’s $1,000 limit on donations to citywide candidates and the $500 limit in City Council races.

In 1992, the Ethics Commission won the biggest settlement in its history to that point when Evergreen America Corp., a shipping firm, agreed to pay $447,000 in fines after it was accused of laundering $170,000 in illegal donations to City Council members and others.

Similar cases were settled at City Hall in 1993, 1994 and 1995.

Last year, toy maker Mattel Inc., a former executive for the firm and a former political consultant agreed to pay $931,000 in fines to city, state and federal ethics agencies to settle charges that $120,000 in Mattel funds had been used to reimburse employees and others who made dozens of contributions to city officials and others.