Prosecutor Calls Lobbyist’s Actions an ‘Obscene Story’ : Courts: Jury is told that secretly recorded tapes show Clayton R. Jackson tried to buy legislative favors.

SACRAMENTO —  A federal prosecutor on Wednesday maintained that conversations secretly recorded by former state Sen. Alan Robbins tell “a grotesque and obscene story” of lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson seeking to buy legislative favors.

“You got the uncut, uncensored Clay Jackson,” Assistant U.S. Atty. John Vincent told a U.S. District Court jury during closing arguments in Jackson’s six-week political corruption trial, “not the polished witness” who appeared on the stand in his own defense.

Central to the government’s case against Jackson are the secret tapes made by Robbins in the summer and fall of 1991, after Robbins agreed to plead guilty to corruption charges and cooperate with authorities by wearing a hidden recording device.

In the conversations, Jackson offered Robbins $250,000 in exchange for switching jurisdiction of controversial workers’ compensation legislation to the “friendly confines” of the Senate Insurance, Claims and Corporations Committee chaired by Robbins.

Jackson testified that he was merely playing along with the veteran San Fernando Valley Democrat and that Robbins was attempting to extort the money from him.

But Vincent assailed Jackson’s credibility, branding his testimony as “nothing but a lie. The defense in this case has been nothing but a sham.”

At one point, Vincent told the jury that Jackson’s way of doing business was nauseating.

Citing a portion of the tapes, in which Jackson said his clients “have to get used to the idea of forming the policies of the government,” Vincent told jurors, “You’ll have to excuse the phrase, ladies and gentlemen, but that statement is enough to make one throw up.”

The alleged $250,000 bribe is part of a racketeering charge against Jackson, 50, a lawyer who was one of the Capitol’s most influential lobbyists until his indictment in February by a federal grand jury. He is also accused of money laundering and conspiracy.

His co-defendant is former state Sen. Paul B. Carpenter, 65, who represented parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties before his 1986 election to the State Board of Equalization. He is charged with conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Both men have pleaded innocent and will present their closing arguments today.

In a strong and at times mocking tone, Vincent dismissed Jackson’s assertions that he was playing along with Robbins as “ludicrous,” telling jurors that if they were in Jackson’s shoes they “would have avoided him (Robbins) like the plague” instead of having repeated conversations with the legislator.

“You would have lost his number,” Vincent said.

Using charts, diagrams and secretly photographed pictures of Robbins and Jackson bantering during their 1991 meetings, Vincent chatted with jurors as a friendly adviser, going over the major elements in the government’s case, which grew out of an ongoing probe of corruption in state government.

A central element in the case is what Vincent labeled as a corrupt scheme to launder money from Jackson’s unsuspecting business clients to Robbins. The government alleges that Jackson got his clients to make $78,000 in campaign contributions to Carpenter, who then used it to hire a Santa Monica public relations firm, the Goddard Co.

That firm, in turn, channeled some of the money to Robbins for his own personal benefit, in violation of the law.

Vincent illustrated the scheme with a chart with bundles of money, originating with Jackson’s clients and ending up with Robbins. He called Carpenter “the wash cycle” and the Goddard firm “the spin cycle” in the laundering operation.

Carpenter testified that even though he met the owner of the company, Jennifer Goddard, only once during the 2 1/2 years he retained her firm, he believed she was doing her job of reducing or eliminating negative news stories about him in The Times.

Vincent said, “He might as well have told you he was a Martian, that he lived on Mars . . . because it has about as much truth to it.”

Times staff writer Cynthia H. Craft contributed to this story.