FBI Sting in Legislature : Informer’s Double Life Called Bid for Redemption

SACRAMENTO —  For two years, John Shahabian led a double life.

To his friends and colleagues, he was a friendly, knowledgeable veteran Senate staff member, a mentor to many of his co-workers and an “entrepreneur” with a variety of business dealings on the side.

To the FBI, Shahabian was a valuable undercover informant who played a central role in a sting operation aimed at exposing corruption in the Legislature. Often, as he went about his work, he wore a recording device hidden in his clothes and helped federal agents amass a huge amount of audio- and videotaped evidence.

“I know John as well as anybody and I’m stunned,” said Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti, who gave Shahabian his first legislative job 14 years ago.

It is unclear just how the 38-year-old consultant to the Senate Elections Committee was drawn into the sting, but his attorney, Donald Heller, said Shahabian himself was “stung” by federal agents.

For months, Shahabian, a member of the Armenian Apostolic Church, confided only in his priest, Father Sassoon Zumrookhdian.

“He cooperated with the FBI because he felt that was the best way to redeem himself,” said Zumrookhdian, who prefers to be called Father Sassoon. “As his spiritual adviser, I would say he was on the right path, that he was doing what his conscience was dictating him to do.”

Shahabian has been in seclusion since Thursday, the day after 30 FBI agents swooped down on the Capitol in a late-night raid on the offices of four legislators: Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale, Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier), Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier) and Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles). State Board of Equalization member Paul Carpenter, a former Democratic senator from Cypress, also is a target of the probe, but his office was not searched.

“God knows what else this is going to reveal,” said Zumrookhdian, who has talked regularly with Shahabian since the raid. “I wouldn’t be surprised if more legislators are involved. . . . This is a challenge for the lawmakers to clean their own house.”

Shahabian met his wife, Daphne, while she was working as a Senate secretary. They have two daughters, ages 7 and 4.

Close friends, such as Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Woo, describe Shahabian as an intelligent and cagey political insider who was skilled at analyzing policy questions and devising political strategy.

Loyal to his friends and occasionally headstrong, some of them said, Shahabian has a good sense of humor but had become cynical about the legislative process.

Other Descriptions

Others view Shahabian as something of a wheeler-dealer and a political insider who helped run one of the state’s nastiest legislative campaigns.

Even while cooperating with the FBI and carrying out his duties as a committee consultant, Shahabian kept up with a variety of outside business interests.

He runs his own firm, Shahabian and Associates, which does political consulting work for Woo and other clients. He is a co-owner of the Coffee Works, a Sacramento coffee house. And he is a director of the State Assistance Fund for Energy Business Industrial Development Corp. (SAFE-BIDCO), a company that provides low-interest loans to small businesses.

“He’s an entrepreneur,” said Woo, who first met Shahabian 12 years ago when the two worked together on Roberti’s staff. “He’s extremely bright and has acute political sensitivities. I never thought he would get himself tangled up in something like this.”

At the end of last year, while the FBI was preparing to sponsor legislation that would benefit one of its phony shrimp importing companies, Zumrookhdian invited Shahabian to become a member of the parish council at St. James Armenian Church.

Confessed Involvement

Shahabian accepted, but only after confessing his involvement in the secret sting operation and the turmoil he expected it would unleash on the Capitol this year.

“He wanted to confess and redeem himself,” Zumrookhdian said. “When this whole thing came about, that was the moral choice he had to make, to continue what he was doing in the past or stand up and face it as a brave person and go on.”

Zumrookhdian would not discuss how Shahabian was ensnared in the FBI sting or provide any details of the investigation.

As a member of the parish council, the priest said, Shahabian came up with the idea of feeding the homeless of Sacramento on April 24, the day Armenians commemorate the genocide of the Armenian people at the hands of the Turks more than 70 years ago, the priest said. The church fed more than 500 people that day, and Shahabian was among those serving food.

While friends may not have seen the stress that Shahabian was under, Zumrookhdian said, he was well aware of the tremendous pressure he faced in his undercover role.

Regular Meetings Told

“It wasn’t easy,” the priest said. “Throughout the year we met regularly and discussed it.”

Sometimes Shahabian was angry with the FBI over certain actions they asked him to undertake. “There were times when, because he was a man of principles, he would not do certain things that were against his principles and morals,” said Zumrookhdian, declining to provide any details.

Shahabian’s involvement in the sting, and the revelation that he was frequently “wired” in his dealings around the Capitol, has startled many of his associates who wonder what they might have said to him while the tape recorder was running.

While cooperating with the FBI, Shahabian left the state payroll briefly last year to work along with many of his colleagues in the hotly contested special election campaign of state Sen. Cecil Green (D-Norwalk).

‘Rat’ and ‘Fink’

Now, some staff members privately refer to him as a “rat” or a “fink.” Others, however, view him more kindly, remembering him as someone who was always willing to help newer staff members learn the complexities of the legislative process.

During the two years he was collecting evidence for the FBI, Shahabian seemed to distance himself from some of his close friends. But he never gave any clue, they say, that the sting was under way.

“Certainly over the last couple of years we’ve noticed little things like John not being so outgoing,” said Sheldon Davidow, a consultant to the Senate Insurance Committee and another longtime friend. “I did not know anything or suspect anything at all until the news broke.”

Shahabian began working in the Capitol in 1974 as an intern in Roberti’s office. Within two years, he had become a consultant to the Select Committee on Small Business Enterprises, which Roberti chaired.

Helped Draft Legislation

In that job, he helped Roberti draft legislation that created the Business Industrial Development Corporations and in, particular, SAFE-BIDCO, the state-backed company on which he still serves as a director.

He left Roberti’s staff in 1979, apparently as a result of a falling out with others on the staff. According to his records, he worked briefly in 1980 as a messenger for Roberti at half his previous pay.

In 1982, he served as the day-to-day manager of the reelection campaign of Democratic Sen. Alex Garcia, who was defeated by Art Torres in one of the roughest legislative races in state history.

Roberti, who rehired Shahabian in 1983, described him as “terribly intelligent and terribly literate. He was great to talk to on esoterica that other people weren’t particularly interested in.”

The following year, Shahabian went to work for then-Sen. Paul Carpenter. In 1986, while Shahabian was still on his staff, Carpenter accepted a $20,000 campaign contribution from one of the FBI’s phony companies, Gulf Shrimp Fisheries Inc.

After Carpenter won election to the Board of Equalization, Shahabian was appointed consultant to the Senate Elections Committee, where his friends believed he was simply doing his job.

“He helped me learn the ropes,” said one staff member who has known him for years. “To me, it is truly amazing that John has lived a double life for so long.”