Divorce Court Papers Detail Alarcon Financial Woes

As a member of the Los Angeles City Council until last year, Richard Alarcon of Sylmar threw lavish parties, traveled to exotic, foreign locales and ate at the finest restaurants, including the Bistro Garden and Beverly Hilton. He needed $500 per month just for clothes.

But Alarcon, now a state senator representing the northeast San Fernando Valley, lived the high life at a cost.

He and his wife went deeply into debt, including more than $20,000 owed on credit cards and $9,100 in back taxes.

Details of the couple’s financial problems are laid out in court papers filed as part of a messy divorce battle between Alarcon and his wife, Corina, a city Building and Safety commissioner and a former council candidate.

“In recent years, our lifestyle has been supported by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul,’ hence the very significant consumer debt we accumulated,” the senator acknowledged in a deposition in the divorce case.

Last month, a judge approved Corina’s bankruptcy petition, which she said was necessary to keep her business and house. In the case, she lists debts of between $50,000 and $100,000.

Corina Alarcon said in divorce court papers that her road to bankruptcy began with the couple’s lavish lifestyle when her husband was still a councilman.

“During our marriage, respondent and I enjoyed many luxuries,” she said in court papers.

There were the trips to France, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Hawaii and Chicago, she said. They ate out weekly at expensive restaurants.

“Another hallmark of our marital lifestyle was lavish parties that we threw,” she wrote. “Some but not all, of the parties were paid for with political support money.” Parties with live music, catered cuisine and valet parking cost as much as $7,000 each, she said.

“Throughout the marriage I shopped at fine department stores, because respondent told me our appearances were very important,” she said.

Her own income running an insurance business suffered, because she devoted as much as 40 hours a week to her husband’s Senate campaign and took his advice to accept a mayoral appointment to the Building and Safety Commission, which took three to six hours a week of her time, she said.

By the time Richard Alarcon asked his wife to separate, they had major debts.

“I believe that this debt was primarily incurred by respondent in his travel expenses as a City Council person,” she stated in the papers. “After incurring the debt, respondent was reimbursed by the city but instead of paying the credit card balance he allowed the debt to accumulate.”

The senator refused to be interviewed by The Times, but admitted in court papers that the couple became financially overextended.

Richard Alarcon suggested his wife could help solve the debt problem by expanding her insurance business or running for office.

“She could work more in promoting her agency and herself in that capacity,” he said in court papers. “Certainly she is also free to pursue other employment opportunities that may well prove more lucrative even than her agency.”

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LAST IN, FIRST UP: A little more than a month after he filed papers to run for the Los Angeles City Council, former federal prosecutor Jack Weiss has become the first candidate in the 5th District race to report reaching the $50,000 level in fund-raising.

On April 7, Weiss was the last of the eight currently declared candidates to file papers to begin fund-raising for the council district that stretches from Sherman Oaks to West Los Angeles.

This week he became the first in the most crowded council race to reach the $50,000 mark, with help from a $5,000 contribution he made to his own campaign.

Robyn Ritter Simon, who filed papers to begin fund-raising more than seven months ago, said she is close to reaching the $50,000 level and is confident she will be able to reach her goal of $330,000 for the April primary election.

Two months ago, Weiss, 35, left his job as assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the public corruption unit to concentrate full time on the race for council.

During his six years as a federal prosecutor, Weiss handled some high-profile cases, including the conviction of Oxnard resident Darlene Gillespie, an original member of the Mickey Mouse Club, for stock fraud.

More recently, Weiss won the conviction of a Woodland Hills woman, the common-law wife of a Thailand diplomat, for involuntary servitude involving Thai immigrants who were forced to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week in the woman’s San Fernando Valley home and restaurant.

Weiss’ campaign platform includes efforts to improve public safety and traffic conditions in Los Angeles.

“The most important issue is improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods,” said Weiss, who lives in West Los Angeles.

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ELECTION COMPLAINT: City Councilman Alex Padilla has found nothing but controversy as he has pushed for a redevelopment project in his northeast Valley district. During the election of a citizens advisory panel to oversee the process, opponents accused Padilla of stacking the election with redevelopment supporters, in part by busing in only voters who supported a slate of candidates he supported.

Last week, the Project Area Committee (PAC) voted to disband, citing deep division over the redevelopment proposal.

Now, a former aide to Padilla, David Cervantes, has filed a complaint with the city Ethics Commission, alleging members of Padilla’s staff improperly campaigned on city time for pro-redevelopment candidates to the PAC last year. Cervantes said he was fired by Padilla last month.

In an interview, Cervantes said he and other staff members were assigned by Padilla’s supervisors to campaign for specific pro-redevelopment candidates during the day and there was no warning that personal time had to be used.

Padilla said he made it clear to his staff members that they could talk to community residents on city time on the redevelopment program and the need to participate in the election, but insisted his staff was clearly warned not to campaign for specific candidates on city time.

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INFORMATION, PLEASE: As part of their campaign to lobby for open access in cable systems, a group of phone companies and Internet firms hired a company headed by James Acevedo, who has long been active in Valley politics.

It was a smart move, because Acevedo is also a political consultant, having last year worked on the campaign that elected Padilla to the City Council seat representing the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Padilla was appointed after his election to head the council’s Information Technology and General Services Committee and suddenly found himself in a key position to set the direction on open access.

In a lobbyist disclosure form filed in March, Acevedo said his lobbying firm, DCP Inc. of San Fernando, was specifically hired to lobby the Information Technology panel, receiving $7,000 for the last quarter of 1999.

The two sides on the issue mounted one of the most expensive lobbying campaigns in city history--spending a total $2.1 million over the past year and a half.

Last week, after months of silence, Padilla announced his support for requiring cable companies to provide open access to competitors providing Internet service, and his committee quickly made that recommendation to the full council.

Padilla said Acevedo never talked to him about the open-access issue.

“My decision on the open-access issue came as a result of me spending a year talking not only to attorneys and lobbyists but also consumers,” Padilla said.