Villaraigosa to Pay $5,100 in Ethics Fines

By Patrick McGreevy, Times Staff Writer

Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa has agreed to pay $5,100 in fines to the city Ethics Commission after acknowledging that his 2001 mayoral campaign violated campaign finance laws.

Villaraigosa signed a stipulation admitting that his campaign accepted six contributions that exceeded the $1,000-per-person limit established by city ethics laws.

"It is all stuff that is clearly inadvertent and unintentional," said Stephen Kaufman, an attorney for the councilman and treasurer of his mayoral campaign committee.

Kaufman said Villaraigosa's campaign did not realize that the donations in question were linked by common donors to other contributions. According to city ethics laws, multiple firms with the same owner are considered to be a single campaign contributor.

The Ethics Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposed settlement next week. The excess donations were discovered during a routine audit by the panel's staff.

The city could have fined Villaraigosa up to $30,000, or $5,000 per violation. But the panel's executive director, LeeAnn Pelham, recommended that the fine equal the amount of excess contributions.

In recommending the smaller fine, Pelham said Villaraigosa and his campaign "have no prior enforcement history with the commission, and cooperated fully in the commission's investigation of this matter."

She said the six excess contributions were among 13,000 checks and credit-card contributions totaling $7.7 million that Villaraigosa received when he ran against James K. Hahn for mayor in 2001. Pelham said in a report to the commission that Villaraigosa's campaign returned the excess contributions to the donors.

Excess contributions came from sources including Killer Tomato Entertainment, Absolute Court Reporting, FDC/ Integrated Payment Systems and the financial consulting firm Sanli Pastore & Hill.

Under city ethics law, Villaraigosa can pay the fines from a political account instead of from his personal bank account.

The violations represent the latest in a string of ethics cases involving the 2001 mayoral race in which Hahn was elected.

Earlier this year, Hahn agreed to pay $53,522 in fines for 64 violations of city campaign rules in 2001, including accepting contributions that exceeded the $1,000 limit and failing to properly disclose campaign mailers.

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