Trial of ex-L.A. official opens

More than four years after an investigation into “pay-to-play” allegations rocked Los Angeles City Hall, the only trial of a government official in the long-running saga opened Wednesday with prosecutors accusing the former power broker of accepting $100,000 in bribes.

Prosecutors told jurors that Leland Wong took the money from Evergreen Group -- a Taipei, Taiwan-based shipping firm -- which was seeking to renegotiate its lease at the Port of Los Angeles. In exchange, Wong used his influence with top city officials to help the firm’s interests, prosecutors said.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Max Huntsman said the Evergreen Group deposited monthly payments of $5,000 into a Hong Kong account belonging to Wong.

Wong served on the airport commission and then the city’s water and power panel while the bribes were paid, yet told his city contacts that he had no financial connection to the firm, the prosecutor said.

“He was being paid for results,” Huntsman said.

The allegation is among the most serious facing Wong, who sat in a gray suit before Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson and took notes as the prosecutor spoke. Wong is also charged with conflicts of interest, perjury, tax evasion in connection with the alleged bribes and embezzlement from his former employer, Kaiser Permanente.

Wong, 51, denies wrongdoing, and his defense attorneys Wednesday portrayed him as a hard-working civic volunteer unfairly singled out in the wake of a massive investigation into public corruption allegations surrounding the administration of former L.A. Mayor James K. Hahn.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Rutherford described the payments from Evergreen as consulting fees and said such arrangements are legal and far from uncommon at City Hall. Wong, he said, filed public documents in 2002 notifying the city about his consulting contract with Evergreen and had his offshore bank account in his own name.

“This is not something he did quietly,” Rutherford said.

The long-anticipated trial is expected to include salacious details of a top mayoral aide receiving massages that involved sexual favors and offer an insight into the inner workings of Los Angeles city government and the awarding of contracts.

The joint federal-state probe into alleged connections between contracts and campaign fundraising cast a pall over Hahn’s tenure and was widely viewed as contributing to his failure to win a second term. Hahn was never publicly linked by prosecutors to any misconduct.

Hahn told a grand jury he had no idea that Wong was on the payroll of the shipping firm. At the time of the alleged bribes, city officials, including Wong, were negotiating with Evergreen’s subsidiary airline to move from crowded Los Angeles International Airport to Ontario International Airport.

Prosecutors intend to call as witnesses current and former city officials, including Hahn.

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jack.leonard@latimes.com