When politicians run into legal trouble, it's not unusual to see them open a defense fund, a move that allows them to pay their lawyers using money raised from private contributors.
But Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo is the only official at City Hall who spent the last year raising money for three legal defense funds, each designed to address a separate court challenge or city Ethics Commission probe.
Because each fund is a separate account, Delgadillo has been able to collect up to four times as much from each contributor as is typically allowed a citywide elected official.
Real estate developers, labor unions and law firms hired by Delgadillo to do legal work for the city have been giving $1,000 to each defense fund, plus $1,000 to his officeholder account, which pays for political activities such as meals and travel.
The arrangement dismays campaign finance watchdogs, who call it a loophole in a system in which city politicians are supposed to raise no more than $1,000 from each donor per year.
"The concern isn't so much that Delgadillo shouldn't be allowed to raise money to defend himself in an investigation," said Kathay Feng, executive director of the nonprofit California Common Cause. "The concern is, with increasing dollars coming from a single contributor, those contributors may have the expectation of special access to the officeholder."
Delgadillo created his latest legal defense fund July 13, three weeks after he acknowledged that his wife, Michelle, drove a city-owned vehicle without a license and enlisted staff members to baby-sit their children.
Taxpayers paid $1,222 in repair costs when Michelle Delgadillo backed the city-owned GMC Yukon into a pole, but Delgadillo reimbursed the expense when the accident became public.
Delgadillo offered few details about the fund, saying through an attorney that it was created in response to newspaper reports that the Ethics Commission was looking into his wife's activities. Stephen Kaufman, a lawyer who serves as the accountant for Delgadillo's various funds, said the city required his client to keep a separate legal account for each of his legal woes.
"He is doing it this way because he is required to do so, not because he wants to do so," Kaufman said.
