Political Corruption

Four South Korean tycoons, including the chairman of the colossal Daewoo Group, drew prison sentences of up to 2 1/2 years for bribing former President Roh Tae Woo, while the heads of five other conglomerates received suspended sentences in a harsh finale Monday to this nation's massive corruption trials. The sentences rocked the business community here because the industrial barons had been seen as far too crucial to South Korea's economic juggernaut to be allowed to languish in jail.

A former vice president of Western Waste Industries, the largest garbage hauler in Los Angeles County, was fined $5,000 and sentenced to three years probation Friday in connection with a political corruption scandal in Louisiana. Citing his cooperation with the FBI, federal prosecutors recommended leniency for Vernon Hizel, who arranged for the Torrance-based company to make a $150,000 payoff to Louisiana state Rep. Michael Russo. Russo has pleaded guilty to extortion and is awaiting sentencing.

One day after South Korean tycoon Kim Woo Choong, the globe-trotting chairman of the huge Daewoo Group, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment on a bribery conviction, he hopped on a plane to China for the grand opening of a Daewoo-built hotel. That same day, Tuesday, Dong Ah Group Chairman Choi Won Suk, facing a 2 1/2-year bribery sentence, flew off to Libya for the completion ceremony of a huge waterway project in Tripoli, Libya.

Suffering from what her defense lawyer described as "suicidal tendencies," former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore was placed under a 72-hour psychiatric lock-down Tuesday, forcing a postponement of her federal extortion and tax fraud trial. Moore entered Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center on Monday night and failed to appear in court Tuesday morning as directed by U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall.

Seated in a straight-backed chair and nervously eyeing the police sergeant sitting across the desk, former South Pasadena Assistant City Manager Charles M. Conn tried to explain why he transferred money from a public organization's checking account into his personal account. He came up blank. "Why? Why? Why? Why?" the thin, balding 46-year-old bureaucrat asked himself, resting his head in his hands. "I pushed it too far," he later muttered.

Former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore was declared incompetent Thursday to take part at this time in her federal extortion trial, but lawyers for both sides expressed hope that the case could resume early next month. Los Angeles federal Judge Consuelo B. Marshall issued the ruling after hearing testimony behind closed doors from two court-appointed psychiatrists who examined the 47-year-old defendant. Moore was brought to the hearing by U.S. marshals from Martin Luther King Jr.

Ignoring cries of whitewash and growing civic protest, Colombia's Congress voted by nearly a 3-1 margin late Wednesday to halt impeachment proceedings against President Ernesto Samper. Samper was accused of having accepted millions of dollars in drug money to finance his 1994 electoral campaign. For the second time in less than a year, the Congress, dominated by Samper's Liberal Party, cleared him of those charges by a vote of 111 to 40. But the fight does not appear to have ended.

A federal judge Monday rejected claims by former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore that she is being prosecuted on federal extortion charges because she is black. In denying Moore's motion to throw out the 25-count criminal case against her, U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall said the defense had failed to meet the burden of proof mandated by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Three defendants charged in the FBI's Operation Rezone investigation pleaded guilty Thursday in a plea bargain that brought the political corruption trial to an abrupt end. Former Clovis City Councilman Leif C. Sorensen admitted to extortion and obstructing justice by demanding payoffs for his vote. Realtor Jack L. Williams of Fresno pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and filing a false tax return, and his son, David M. Williams, pleaded guilty to perjury.

Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, who won election promising to run Arizona like his own business, was indicted Thursday on federal charges of making false statements to financial institutions and using his office to pressure union pension funds to free him from a $10-million loan guarantee. The 23-count indictment by a federal grand jury in Phoenix also accused the 50-year-old Republican, now in his second term, of wire and bankruptcy fraud.