After days of dodging questions, Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo acknowledged Monday that his wife was driving his city-owned SUV with a suspended license when it was damaged in a 2004 accident and later repaired at taxpayer expense.
At a City Hall news conference, Delgadillo said he should have come forward immediately last week when a Times report raised questions about the accident. But, he said, he stalled because he was trying to protect his family from the "public eye." He characterized his conduct as a breach of "the public trust."
"I mishandled the situation, and I apologize," he said. "I take full responsibility."
But even after his news conference, Delgadillo's staff worked into the evening to correct misstatements that the city attorney had made.
Among the main clarifications:
* Despite initially denying that he drove without the automobile insurance required of all California drivers, Delgadillo actually was an uninsured motorist from June 2005 to July 2006.
* And, contrary to his assertion that his wife was insured when she left the scene of a separate accident in 2004 involving the couple's jointly registered personal car, she was, in fact, also uninsured.
"Due to the confusing nature of the facts in this situation, I misspoke today," Delgadillo said in a statement released after meeting with reporters.
The revelations about the Delgadillos' driving records and use of city property came more than a week after the city attorney had refused to discuss the accident involving his city-owned GMC Yukon.
At the news conference, Delgadillo said he had been attending the Democratic National Convention in Boston when his wife used his SUV to go see her doctor because their personal car had broken down. He said she damaged the rear end backing the SUV into a pole in the parking lot at her doctor's office. He would not say where the accident occurred but that it was not at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, as one Times source had stated. When Delgadillo returned from his Boston trip, he said, he turned the vehicle in to the city garage.
Records show that the repair was estimated to cost $2,120. Delgadillo, however, provided a document that stated that the cost actually amounted to $1,222. He said he wrote a personal check Monday to reimburse the city for the expense.
"It's the right thing to do," he said.
