Former state Controller Kathleen Connell has complied with a demand to give up $22,000 in political contributions to her 2001 Los Angeles mayoral campaign because the donors have admitted the money was laundered.
The action increases pressure on other L.A. politicians who have received laundered contributions -- including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and Councilman Jack Weiss -- to write checks to the state or city.
"Any contributions found to be coming from laundered funds should be given to the state," said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause. "It shows that the elected official does care about transparency and wants clean hands."
At least 19 contributions received by Connell's campaign committees were made in the name of someone other than the true source of the money, according to the contributors, who admitted that the money was donated in a scheme hatched with an executive of Casden Properties Inc.
Connell's decision to write a check to the state general fund at the insistence of the state Fair Political Practices Commission puts the spotlight on contributions that went to Villaraigosa, Delgadillo and others that were laundered in the same scheme.
Most said they would consider returning funds if formally notified that the contributions were laundered.
The state Political Reform Act requires that when a campaign committee receives a contribution made in the name of another person -- an act known as political money-laundering -- it must pay the amount to the state general fund, said John M. Applebaum, chief of enforcement for the FPPC.
The City Charter has a similar provision.
A memo to the state commission this week from Applebaum disclosed that Connell wrote a check to the state after receiving a letter of demand from his office.
"We have no evidence to suggest these committees were aware they had received laundered contributions or had otherwise violated the act," Applebaum wrote.
The same finding -- that there was no evidence candidates knew money they received had been laundered -- was reached in all the city cases.
The Los Angeles Ethics Commission last year won settlements from John Archibald, a vice president for Casden Properties, and more than two dozen people, including subcontractors, their employees, relatives and associates.
