WASHINGTON — The federal prosecutor whose office won a conviction of Carlos Vignali on narcotics charges in 1994 said Monday that he received two telephone calls from Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, asking about the extent of Vignali's involvement in a drug ring that stretched from California to Minnesota.
Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, said he received the calls from Mayorkas in early 1999.
Former officials in the Clinton White House, meantime, said that a favorable recommendation from a U.S. attorney was a key factor in the former president's decision to commute the 15-year prison sentence of the convicted drug trafficker on Clinton's last day in office.
In Southern California, some civic leaders, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, expressed regret that they might have helped Vignali win commutation. Mahony issued a statement apologizing for writing a letter on behalf of the young man, and former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa said in an interview that he should not have intervened in the matter. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) said he had relied on Justice Department information in asking the White House to give Vignali's commutation petition a close review.
The former Clinton White House officials, who said they could not remember the identity of the U.S. attorney who intervened on Vignali's behalf, said that such an endorsement is essential if any request for presidential clemency is to be approved.
Mayorkas, asked twice Monday about his role in the Vignali case, repeatedly declined to discuss the matter. "I'm not going to comment," he said.
In Minneapolis, Jones said that Mayorkas called him as he was sending a formal letter to the pardon attorney's office in Washington urging that Vignali's sentence not be commuted. Mayorkas told him he was calling at the behest of Vignali's father, Horacio, who was urging a number of California political figures for help in getting his son out of prison, Jones said.
"He was checking up on what the case was all about," Jones said of Mayorkas.
"Why? Because the old man was calling him. Horacio was contacting Ali and his U.S. attorney's office seeking support for a commutation."
It is highly unusual for a U.S. attorney to intervene in any case outside his own district.
Mayorkas, told what Jones and others were saying about him, said: "People are going to be saying things." He added that he has a record of not publicly commenting on presidential pardons or commutations.
