Will the Ethics Panel Ever Get Back Its Bite?

Five years ago, a legal intern for the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission became suspicious while poring over campaign contribution reports.

What caught Craig Steele’s eye were $500 contributions from an odd assortment of givers. They listed their occupations as secretary, receptionist and such--jobs that seemingly wouldn’t pay enough to warrant such big gifts. Some lived in other cities. Why would a receptionist living outside L.A. give $500 each to several Los Angeles City Council candidates? It didn’t make sense.

Steele, who is now a Los Angeles attorney, took his suspicions to his boss, Mimi Strauss, then head of the Ethics Commission’s enforcement division. She told the fledgling gumshoe to press on. Eventually, the state Fair Political Practices Commission and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office joined the chase.

The investigation concluded that these generous givers were not bona fide contributors at all. In fact, the probers said, it was a mammoth money laundering scheme. The listed donors had been reimbursed in cash by powerful lobbyists and companies trying to hide their contributions to elected city officials and evade L.A.’s $500 contribution limit. The laundering even extended to statewide elections.

One of L.A.’s most powerful political figures, lobbyist and ex-City Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, was accused of masterminding the scheme and was charged with money laundering. He and his associates await trial in what campaign finance expert Robert Stern calls America’s biggest political money laundering case.

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It was the muckraking spirit of the Ethics Commission and its first executive officer, Ben Bycel, that encouraged intern Steele to follow his suspicions and become the little-known hero of this political detective story.

Bycel is gone, fired last year at the instigation of a new commission president, UCLA law instructor Racquelle de la Rocha, who was appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan. She joined in a 3-1 vote against Bycel.

Her reasons remain unclear. She said Bycel couldn’t get along with the state Fair Political Practices Commission and other enforcement agencies. De la Rocha used to be on the state FPPC, and I suppose she has a loyalty to the old team.

It’s true that Bycel is hard to get along with. Even his friends concede that he’s abrasive. But De la Rocha’s complaint doesn’t make sense in view of the fact that the Ethics Commission, the FPPC and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s office have cooperated so effectively on the Snyder probe.

De la Rocha didn’t return my calls when I tried to clarify the point. But in a letter to The Times last November, she raised questions about whether she is committed to the tough prosecutorial approach used in the Snyder case.

In the letter, she boasted that the FPPC “settled five money-laundering cases in Los Angeles this past summer, collecting fines totaling $100,000.�

This kind of settlement represents the opposite of what was done in the Snyder case. Rather than charging the culprits with criminal offenses and dragging them into court, government agencies negotiate with them in private as if they were settling a civil lawsuit. The resulting fines are small change for the corporations, lobbyists or officeholders who get nailed. The elected officials just hold another fund-raiser.

I talked to the other commissioners. In general, they wanted to continue the tough approach of the past, without passing a bunch of nit-picking, hard-to-enforce regulations. “I don’t think anything has been changed as far as the temperament of the commission, as far as making sure everything is fair, as far as making sure the city has ethical politics,� said Eve Fisher, who voted against Bycel.

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It’s far too early to tell who will succeed Bycel. The acting executive officer, Rebecca Avila, is highly regarded by most commissioners, but none would say if she will get the job. The commission is scheduled to interview candidates this week.

Their decision will be one of the most important of the year in City Hall.

When the commission was formed in 1991 after revelations of irregularity and scandal in the Tom Bradley administration, commissioners and Bycel brought a new attitude to the old building: outrage.

No matter who becomes the new executive officer, the outrage must continue.