State Ends Robbins Campaign Probe, Will Not File Charges

SACRAMENTO —  A state attorney general’s investigation into whether Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) illegally used campaign funds to finance a real estate development in Ventura County has concluded with the finding that there is nothing to warrant the filing of charges.

The state probe grew out of the development of the 3,850-acre Strathearn Ranch near Moorpark. The attorney general’s office looked into Robbins’ role in the development as part of an investigation into more than $400,000 in loans that the legislator made from his political campaign treasury.

In March, 1988, then-Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp closed the investigation because there was no evidence that any loans were used for projects that would benefit Robbins. That would have been a violation of the state law barring the personal use of campaign funds.

At the time, Robbins said that the loans were made to others by his campaign committee as investments--a practice that is permitted under state campaign law.

In February, 1990, the attorney general’s office reopened the case because of sworn statements signed by Robbins as part of a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles involving the Strathearn Ranch property. At the time, N. Eugene Hill, an assistant attorney general, said the documents indicated that one loan may have helped finance the development, in which Robbins held a personal interest.

Hill said Robbins’ statements “made under penalty of perjury in the private litigation contradict information he personally provided to this office.”

But Denise Davis, an information officer for the current attorney general, Dan Lungren, said the probe was closed “because what they found in the investigation did not warrant the filing of charges.”

In the past when an investigation was shut down, records have become public. But Robert Mukai, chief assistant attorney general, said that even though the probe ended June 17, the files remain sealed at the request of another, unnamed agency investigating Robbins.

Robbins continues to be a target of a wide-ranging federal grand jury probe into Capitol political corruption, according to sources close to that separate investigation.

Robbins said he cooperated with the state attorney general’s investigators and is pleased that they decided to close their case. He said the allegations were untrue in 1988 “and they weren’t true when they closed” the investigation.