News Scrapbook 1985

San Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) Evening Tribune (Cir. D. 127,454) SEP 16 1985 Cit ~ttorney orders Martinez review -;;._ Possible credit-card violation spurs inquiry

Los Angeles, CA (Los Angeles Co I LA Doily Journot ( Cir. 5xW 21,287)

SEP 16 198

.Jlll~n ••

p c. e

i., , 1888 La School News 7.. s $ Gordon T. Ownby San Diego Students Defend Juveniles

By Roy Schneider Tribune SIii/£ Writer

Deputy District Attorney James Hamilton said his office will review the documents and probably decide by the end of the week whether to launch a full investi- gation into the councilman's credit bills. Meanwhile, Martinez says his staff will meet with officials of the city auditor's office this week to see wnether he will have to repay the city for some of the expensive meals he charged on city credit. Following an emergency staff meeting yesterday, Martinez said he plans to carry out his regular schedule Ot business today and leave the untangling of his "slop- py'' bookkeeping to his aides. Please see CREDIT, A/11

San Diego City Attorney John Witt today ordered his staff to conduct a full review of city credit-card expend- itures by City Councilman Uvaldo Martinez and said he hoped to send his findings to the district attorney's off. ice by the end of the day. Witt said be decided to conduct the inquiry because of new accounts indicating some of the bills for expensive meals may not have involved city business. "If the news accounts are true, there is a possible criminal violation of the law," Witt said, adding that the district attorney is responsible for felony criminal in- vestigations.

Juveniles In trouble with the law In San Die o are getting help from law students In a new clinic at the University ot_Sa_B Diego Law School. "We've tried to get Into Juvenile court for years, and thl year the court has asked us to come In," Prof. Rick Barron said In pub II• ctzlngth program. The clinic began In August with two cases, a burglary and on auto theft. According to Prof. Laura Berend, who directs the cUnlc with B rron, the professors and students travel to the Juvenile court on Thursday mornings lo scan the day's calendar for de- fendant lo be chosen for representation. Only lndl nt Juvenlle defendants are eligi- ble for the free a lstance. Barron Id that when choosing defen- dants to repre nt, "we look for the tough- les, rather than the easy one ." Cases re- quiring extensive pretrial motions, re- arch, nd In-field Inv tlgatlon are pre- ferred, Barron said, ''to give our students as much xperlence as possible." Barron said that the clinic's partlclpat~on In juvenile court wUJ "expose students to a fl Id of law sorely lacking In lntere led at- torney " The ame lght clinical ludents defending uv nlles also work handling adult case In he law school's adult defense program, but Ber nd said last week that some of the stu- dents In the juvenile clinic have a special Interest In juvenile law. BPrPnd aid tr lnlng Is the same for both th Juvenile and adult clinics, but when de- f nding In Juvenile court, the students have to learn to "move a lot faster." With th less formal procedures In juve- nile court and with no juries, the "cases work through much, much faster. Probably four times as fast," Berend said. Knut Johnson, a third-year student in the clinic, aid la t week that working with Juve- niles prnsents other problems. Dealing with other members of the family with whom the d lendant live or who must provide trans- po atlon to the minor ls unique to Juvenile d f nse, Johnson aid. "I not only have to press on him the Importance of maklng his appearanc on lime, I must also im- press his I t r or parents," said Johnson. The prof ~sors, who advise the students throughout the process and appear with them In court, expect the clinic to handle up to hree dozen cases this semester. The clin- ic's first trial Is set for Wednesday In a resi- dential break-In case. Juvenile Court Supervising Judge Napo- leon Jones, who consented to the new pro- gram In his court, said the students' presence wlJI result In "quality representa- tion for the juveniles." "The law school students are prepared well and will do a good job for their clients," aid Jones, himself a USD graduate and a 1971 charter member of the law school's adult defense project. Prof. Theresa Player, who oversees the law school's clinical programs, said the

clinic is currently fully funded by the univer- sity but Is scheduled to gain the assistance of a paralegal, whose salary will be paid through a grant from the State Bar's client trust fund. ••• ORRIN B. EVANS, dean emeritus at the USC Law Center, dled last Monday of a heart attack. He was 75. Evans was a faculty member at the school since 1947 and during his tenure as dean from 1963 to 1967, began using lnterdisclp- lary approach to legal studies, Including the now widely used social science approach. He also directed the $3.2 million fundraislng effort that resulted In the school's current buildlng. The son of a Seventh U.S. Circuit of Ap- peals judge In Chicago, Evans earned his law degree from the University of Wisconsin and began his law practice in Madison. Evans Is survived by his widow, Marga- ret, of Laguna Hills, daughter Margaret, and sons David and Evan. Services were scheduled for last Friday afternoon; the famUy suggests that contributions may be sent to the law school In Evans' name. ••• II.ANA ASAMOAH, a second-year student al Georgetown University Law Center, has been named as one of two student delegates to the American Bar Association's House of Delegates. Asamoah, elected to the dele- gation by the ABA's Law Student Division, join · third-year Suffolk Universlty law stu- dent John Stobierski. Asamoah and Stobierski have full voting rights at the ABA's midyear meetings and among Asamoah's priorities Is an exchange program to send American law students to developing nations. Asamoah, who arrived In the United States from hls native Ghana in 1977 and re- cently received hls U.S. citizenship, is the second black delegate elected by the law stu- dent division. ••• PRESSES WILL ROLL this month for what the publishers are calling the first com- prehensive analysis of alternative dispute resolution for law school use. "Dispute Resolution," by Professors Ste- phen Goldberg, Eric Green, and Frank Sander, "provides an overview of all dis- pute resolution processes, and presents the disadvantages as well as the advantages of each process," according to publishers Little Brown. Sander is director of Harvard Law School's program for dispute resolution; Goldberg teaches courses ln dispute resolu- tion and labor law at Northwestern Univer- sity School of Law; and Green teaches constitutional law and dispute resolution at Boston University School of Law.

UV ALDO MARTINEZ Blames sloppy bookkeeping

San Diego,~

*Credit Coo;l~ l'fom Pa

I all seven other council offices and the mayor. Included in that figure are 125 meals the two charged to the city. Martinez says the bills were ap- propriate because accepting free meals from people doing business with the city could create an appear- ance of impropriety. After the spending spree was made public last week, a number of the people Martinez listed as "guests" at the meals denied attend- ing them - some saying they've never dined with the councilman at all - and yesterday one couple said the councilman treated them to an expensive dinner though city busi- ness was not discussed. "It certainly was not a business meal," said John Cunningham, base- ball coach at the U_niversity of San Diego, referring to a $98.13 diMer Martinez purchased with a city cred- it card Dec. 1, 1984. Cunningham said he and his wife, Nancy, met Martinez and the coun- cilman's wife, Pat, by "happen- stance" when they went to dine at the Butcher Shop Steak House after attending a fund-ra1Ser at St. Augus- tine High School in North Park. Both men are graduates of the school and attended the fund-raiser. "Certainly nothing was prear- ranged," said CuMingham. "I don't even remember seeing him at the fund-raiser." At Martinez's request the couple joined the councilman and his wife for dinner, partly because it was Martinez's birthday, says Cunning- ham, adding that he expected to pay for part of the meal. ''I had my credit card out,'' Cunn- ingham said. "But the comment was made (by Martinez): I'll pay for this one. You pay for the next one." Cunningham said he was shocked when he learned this weekend that Martinez had listed the meal as city business and charged it on his city credit card.

However, Martinez's guests at four of the most expensive meals he charged to the city - ranging in price from $316 to $206 - said city business was the central focus of conversation as reported by Mar- tinez. Among those who have already said they didn't participate in the meals Martinez listed them as at- tending are Rep. Bill Lowery, R-San Diego, and his top aide, Dan Green- blat; County Supervisor Brian Bil- bray; Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox; San Diego Chamber of Commerce President Lee Grissom, and Mike Madigan, a chamber official and vice president of Pardee Construction Co. The district attorney's office and the city attorney have received no

complaints about Martinez's expend- itures. Steve Casey, a spokesman for the district attorney's office, would not discuss the allegations against Mar- tinez specifically, but said that as a general rule reimbursement does not always wipe the slate clean. Vista City Councilman Ed Neal faces a charge of grand theft, misap- propriation of public funds and sub- mitting a fraudulent claim to the city stemming from a bill for $900 worth of airline tickets purchased with city funds. Neal eventually acknowledged that a ticket for his girlfriend was included in that bill, but said he sub- mitted her expenses by accident. He reimbursed the city but was still indicted.

UV ALDO MARTINEZ 81.JllleS sloppy bookkeeping

•

•

Cunningham also said he coached one of Martinez's cousins on the USD baseball team and Martinez's daugh- ter attended Nancy Cunningham's English class several years ago at Our Lady of Peace High School. However, Cunningham said the couples were not partic_ularly close and prior to the Dec. 1 dinner he had not seen Martinez since late 1983 when the two attended a victory party at the San Diego Hilton thrown by J. David Dominelli to celebrate Mayor Hedgecock's victory in the mayor's race. Master of ceremonies at that event was City Club President George _Mi- trovich, for whom Nancy Cunning- ham was working at the time. Meanwhile, more people said this weekend that they were not at meals Martinez listed them as attending: • San Diego City Councilman Mike Gotch, listed as attending a Dec. 12 dinner costing $123.63 at Dob- son's said he may have had a glass of wine'with Martinez, but didn't eat. Gotch aide Diane Annala said Gotch remembers joining Martinez at the bar for a glass of wine and may have briefly accompani~ hi~ to the dinner table after Martinez s guest, Colorado Sen. J?.(>nald ~- ~an- doval, arrived but he defmitely didn't have dinner." • Poway Mayor Bob Emery and Poway City Manager Jim Bowersox said they have never dined with Mar- tinez though they appeared on his credit reports as Martinez's guests May 28 at Los Arcos in Escondido for a meal costing $37.44. Martinez also charged $9.50 that day for a meal at Mulvaney's in Escondido, listing Bowersox as his guest. • Port Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer said he was in London on port business on May 30, the day Martinez has him listed as a dining companion at Dobson's. The bill for that meal was $13.50.

"(The dinner) bad nothing to do with politics or that he was a city councilman," Cunningham said. Martinez had listed the meal as necessary to discuss "expansion of USD sports complex," but Cunning- ham says he can't remember whether the topic came up, though sports was discussed. The main thrust of the dinner conversation was personal and general, he said. "We touched on a thousand and one topics," Cunningham said. Martinez remembers the dinner differently. He said the main topic of discussion was a plan by USD to ex- pand its baseball field though some nearby residents objected. Martinez said the residents were appealing a city Planning Department ruling on the issue and he offered Cunningham advice on how .to soothe the resi- dents' worries. "When it came time to pay the bill I made the judgment that we had talked sufficient city business to jus- tify my paying,'' Martinez said. Cunningham and Martinez have known each other since the two at- tended St. Augustine, though Mar- tinez was in a lower grade. The two worked together as doormen at a local nightclub in the mid-1960s, Cunningham said.

San Diego, CA (Son Diego Co.) Son Diego Union (Cir. D. 217,3241 (Cir. S. 339,7881

SEP 181985

.Jllkri'•

p c. 8

bl 1888

Desert park tour A tour of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, sponsored by the San Diego Natural History Muie~will be held on Oct. 26. ;)..,."\?.? Dr. Richard Phillips or the Univer- sity .Qf_Sao Diego will lead'the-t011r, which is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A number of stops are planned to view the geology of the foothills and mountains. Participants must be at least 14; those under 18 should be accompa- nied by a parent. Participants should bring a sack lunch and beverage. Fee for the trip is $33 for non-museum members. Reservations are required. For more information, contact the Natural History Museum. - From staff reports

•