Ex-Officer in Photo Cited by Simon Wins Parole Board Post

Alfred Angele, a former police officer shown handing Gov. Gray Davis a $10,000 contribution in a photograph that helped derail Republican Bill Simon Jr.’s campaign for governor, was narrowly confirmed Friday as a member of the state parole board.

Senate Democrats overcame Republican opposition to Davis’ reappointment of Angele to a four-year term by casting 21 favorable votes, the bare majority required to approve an appointee to a $99,000 post on the Board of Prison Terms.

Republicans did not challenge Angele’s qualifications. But Sen. Ross Johnson of Irvine, the GOP’s senior member, cited Angele as an example of Davis’ rewarding a campaign supporter with a patronage job, a tradition long practiced by California governors.

Johnson also complained that a second Davis supporter, prominent homebuilder Bruce Karatz, whose Santa Monica house played a role in the photograph controversy, had been named by Davis in 1999 to an unpaid spot on the governor’s advisory Commission on Building for the 21st Century.

At the start of Senate debate, President Pro Tem John L. Burton (D-San Francisco) and Johnson playfully sparred over the confirmation of Angele, a retired Burbank police officer and former executive director of the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs. But the debate turned testy, with Burton accusing Johnson of making a “somewhat unfair” attack against the nominee.

In the final weeks of the gubernatorial campaign last year, Simon cited the photo as evidence that in 1998, then-Lt. Gov. Davis broke the law by accepting at his official state office a $10,000 contribution from the police and sheriffs organization. It is a misdemeanor to accept political donations on state property.

Pictured with Davis was Angele. However, it turned out that Simon was wrong and that no law had been broken because the photo had been taken at the private home of Karatz, a Davis fund-raiser.

Simon, a former prosecutor, was forced to reverse himself on what he called a “sorry episode.” But many political analysts said Simon’s false accusation so damaged his credibility that his already struggling campaign was all but finished. Davis defeated him in a surprisingly close election.

Johnson insisted Friday that the “real point” of the photograph was to demonstrate that Angele and Karatz had hosted the 1998 fund-raiser and later were “appointed to government positions by Gov. Davis.” Burton asserted that Republicans were trying to “rerun” the election.

As one of the parole board’s toughest critics, Burton credited Angele with making some improvements in the agency’s operations, but said that Angele “knows there is more work to be done.”

The parole board has long drawn criticism, but under Davis, the fire has been particularly heavy.

Burton has charged that board members are lazy, refuse to release qualified prisoners and arbitrarily deny inmates timely parole hearings.