O’Donnell Pleads No Contest to Laundering Hahn Funds

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Prominent Los Angeles trial attorney Pierce O’Donnell pleaded no contest Thursday to charges that he laundered political contributions to former Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn.


O’Donnell pleaded no contest to five counts of using a false name, as part of the laundering scheme. In exchange for his plea, 21 additional counts were dismissed.


After the plea, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Alex Ricciardulli ordered O’Donnell to pay $155,200 in fines and penalties, placed him on three years probation and barred him for three years from participating in political fundraising activities.


“This was an important case in the overall effort by the D.A.’s office to ensure integrity in Los Angeles city government elections,” L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley said of the plea deal. “Part of our job is to ensure an even playing field in electoral campaigns.”


O’Donnell was not present in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday; the plea was placed in his stead by his personal attorney, George O’Connell.


In a statement released through his publicist, O’Donnell said: “Throughout this investigation, I have cooperated fully with the District Attorney’s Office. My objective has always been to resolve this matter quickly and amicably in the best interests of everyone involved. I needed to put this behind me and move forward now with my life.”


The plea arrangement was made in agreement with Cooley’s public integrity division and prosecutors Ric Ocampo and Juliet Schmidt. It caps a case that had helped give the impression of political corruption in the Hahn administration.


Cooley’s office began an investigation in early 2004 into allegations referred from the City Ethics Commission that O’Donnell had collected $25,000 in donations for Hahn’s 2001 mayoral campaign from seven other contributors and reimbursed those donors without revealing their names in campaign finance statements as required by law.


Cooley brought the charges against O’Donnell and seven co-defendants in June 2004. The co-defendants included employees of O’Donnell’s law firm, O’Donnell Shaeffer Mortimer LLP, as well as associates. Charges against these co-defendants were dropped after a Superior Court judge ruled that statements they gave to prosecutors under limited immunity promises were improperly used as the basis for the filing of charges.


The charges against O’Donnell coincided with other investigations into alleged “pay-to-play” practices within the Hahn administration that gave other political rivals an opening to challenge him for re-election.

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Howard Fine
Howard Fine is a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He covers stories pertaining to healthcare, biomedicine, energy, engineering, construction, and infrastructure. He has won several awards, including Best Body of Work for a single reporter from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers and Distinguished Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists.

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