Huang to Plead Guilty in Campaign Financing

Former Democratic Party fund-raiser John Huang was charged Tuesday with conspiring to violate federal campaign finance laws and has agreed to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors.

A criminal information filed in Los Angeles federal court accuses Huang of arranging for fellow employees of the Indonesian-based Lippo Group to be reimbursed for contributions they were asked to make to two California politicians.

One $2,500 donation went to Michael Woo’s 1993 campaign for Los Angeles mayor. Woo was defeated by Richard Riordan in that race.

The other was a $5,000 contribution to the California Victory Fund ’94. The money was shared by Dianne Feinstein’s U.S. Senate campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the California Democratic Party.

Huang raised millions of dollars for the Democratic Party and was the pivotal figure in the fund-raising controversy. The plea agreement marks the latest in a series of key pleas or convictions by the Justice Department’s campaign financing task force.

Huang, who lives in Glendale, was the Lippo Group’s top executive in the United States and a tireless campaigner among Asian Americans to become more involved in politics.

After President Clinton’s 1992 election victory, Huang regularly frequented the White House and joined the Commerce Department in a high-level post. In 1996, he spearheaded the Democratic Party’s fund-raising efforts among Asian Americans--a source of campaign cash largely ignored until then.

But his success in that job also brought him under suspicion in Congress and in the press as a possible conduit for illegal foreign campaign contributions. Amid questions about the money’s source, Democrats returned $1.6 million raised by Huang.

Congressional committees also looked into whether Huang, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, gathered information for Lippo or China during his stint as a Commerce Department official. Lippo, owned by billionaire businessman Mochtar Riady, a Clinton friend, has close ties to China’s rulers.

Close friends said Huang was deeply wounded and depressed over the insinuations of disloyalty.

In announcing the single conspiracy count against him Tuesday, the Justice Department acknowledged that it had no evidence suggesting Huang engaged in political or economic espionage or violated national security laws. However, it added, the government remains free to bring charges if any such evidence surfaces.

That acknowledgment is expected to be incorporated into a formal plea agreement to be filed in federal court in the next several weeks.

Under the agreement, legal sources said, the Justice Department will recommend that Huang be sentenced to one year of probation, pay a fine and perform community service. The felony offense carries a statutory maximum punishment of five years in prison.

Prosecutors also have agreed to write a letter supporting the restoration of Huang’s voting rights, the sources said.

Reached by telephone at his home, Huang declined to comment on the criminal complaint and the plea agreement on the advice of his lawyers, Ty Cobb in Washington and John Potter in Los Angeles.

But Cobb said: “We are very pleased that this long ordeal for John and his family is almost over. And we commend the Justice Department for publicly acknowledging that John is not and never was a spy.”

The Justice Department also confirmed Tuesday that Huang has been providing information to the campaign financing task force, which was established by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to investigate abuses in the 1996 elections.

Huang has provided substantial information that could lead to charges against others, government officials said.

Huang is the 17th person to be prosecuted by the task force. He also is the third key figure to provide information to the task force. The others are Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie, a restaurateur in Little Rock, Ark., who entered a plea agreement last week, cutting off his trial for allegedly obstructing the Senate’s investigation of campaign finance abuses; and Taiwanese American businessman Johnny Chung, sentenced to five years’ probation in Los Angeles.

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Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this story.