Delgadillo Broke Campaign Laws, Ethics Panel Says

The city attorney could face fines over alleged contribution violations in 2001.

By Patrick McGreevy, Times Staff Writer

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission alleged Thursday that City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo's 2001 campaign violated state and city campaign finance laws.

The Ethics Commission is turning over its findings to the state Fair Political Practices Commission and city enforcement officials for possible action, which could include administrative fines.

Delgadillo's attorney, Colleen McAndrews, said the city attorney is committed to complying with all campaign laws and is working with the Ethics Commission to resolve any problems.

"Anything less than perfect is unacceptable. But humans make errors both on the contributor side and the recipient side," McAndrews said.

The allegations come as the Ethics Commission conducts routine audits of campaigns in the 2001 city election. Earlier this month, Mayor James K. Hahn agreed to pay $54,522 in fines to settle similar allegations.

Auditors said Delgadillo's campaign committees for the 2001 primary and runoff elections failed to verify at the time that 24 contributions totaling $16,432 did not exceed the city's $1,000 limit.

Many of the questioned contributions involved instances where two or more companies with the same owners or addresses each contributed amounts to Delgadillo that combined exceeded the $1,000 limit.

Candidates are required to attempt to verify if multiple contributions with the same name or address are coming from the same source. The audit said Delgadillo's committees "failed to substantiate" that the questioned contributions were legal.

Campaign treasurer David Gould wrote to ethics auditors that the committees made their "best efforts" at the time to verify that multiple contributions were not coming from the same sources.

Since then, Gould said, he has determined that at least 11 of the contributions in question comply with the $1,000 limit. The audit identified six other donations that appeared to violate the cap.

Gould said the seven other contributions in question involved cases where the campaign was "unable to verify conclusively" the relationships of multiple contributors.

Auditors also alleged that Delgadillo's 2001 campaign failed to provide the Ethics Commission with copies of six mass mailings by city-established deadlines and did not maintain required records about the mailings.

The audits also said Delgadillo did not properly disclose more than $22,000 spent from his office account on meals, travel and gifts.

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