Republican AG cand. Steve Cooley's gift disclosures raise questions

[alp227]

(10-29) 04:00 PDT Sacramento - --

Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, the front-runner in the race for attorney general, received more than $4,000 worth of gifts over the past seven years that he did not disclose in annual public filings, a Chronicle review found.

Documents kept by the Republican prosecutor on gifts he or his office received show that since 2003, the prosecutor recorded dozens of expensive tickets to concerts, football and baseball games. While he disclosed most of those gifts in the required annual filings with the state, numerous gifts that appeared on his logs were not included in those state records.

Cooley, who is running in part on an anti-corruption platform, said during an August meeting with The Chronicle's editorial board that he has followed all state laws relating to gifts.

Cooley's records were obtained through a public record request made by the campaign of his opponent, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, and given to The Chronicle, which compared those records with Cooley's campaign filings. Harris is trailing Cooley in most polls in a race where up to one-third of voters say they are still undecided.

--snip--

Some of the gifts given to Cooley in recent years - if they had been disclosed on state filings - would have exceeded the annual limit allowed under California law.

In 2009, for example, the wife of a Los Angeles Superior Court judge gave Cooley $254 worth of college football and basketball tickets that were declared, and another $435 worth tickets to the Rose Bowl that he did not list on his annual filing with the state - a total of $689.

Reed said Cooley did not have to disclose the Rose Bowl gifts because he was sick and did not use them. Instead, Reed said, he called the donor, Inger Ong, and she told him to give them to a mutual friend, mediator Charles Baklay.

Full story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/29/BATU1G2QP8.DTL&ao=all