Galardi’s girlfriend testifies

Friday, June 17, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.

SAN DIEGO -- Defense attorneys finished hammering at the former kingpin of a strip club empire Thursday, then turned their sights -- briefly -- upon his girlfriend.

The focus of the trial of two San Diego city councilmen, a city council aide and a former Clark County commissioner and lobbyist remained on strip club owner Michael Galardi's alleged cash bribes, particularly an accusation he made this week that he paid $10,000 to the San Diego politicians in one day as part of a years-long effort to overturn a city ordinance.

Galardi testified against former County Commissioner Lance Malone, Councilmen Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet and aide David Cowan in their political corruption trial Thursday, the last day before a scheduled four-day break in the proceeding. Federal prosecutors say Malone was a bag man for Galardi in efforts to bribe San Diego politicians to overturn a hated prohibition against strip club dancers having physical contact with customers.

Michael Pancer, attorney for Inzunza, questioned why Galardi did not report the alleged $10,000 cash payment to the San Diego councilmen in April 2003, just a month before the FBI raided the strip clubs and offices of politicians in both California and Nevada.

Galardi told the court that the payment, the largest single payment he has reported thus far, slipped his mind. He and his girlfriend, Nevita Thompson, agreed that looking at American Express bills late in 2004, about 20 months after Galardi allegedly gave Malone a business envelope stuffed with $10,000 in $100 bills to give to the city councilmen, refreshed their memory of the payoff.

Galardi, Thompson and Galardi's two children were vacationing at San Diego's Montage Hotel with Malone, Malone's wife, Rosemary, and their two children during the time of the alleged payoff.

Pancer noted that Galardi managed to avoid any mention of the cash bribe during multiple sessions of providing information to federal investigators, including the first of those meetings in July 20003.

"In that July interview, you never mentioned what you claimed happened at the Montage Hotel?" an incredulous Pancer asked Galardi.

Pancer pressed for details on how Malone, who was captured in FBI surveillance photos at the time in San Diego, would have carried the cash to the councilmen.

"You got the smaller white envelopes and then you got your decent size envelopes," Galardi said, holding his fingers about 8 inches apart. "It was big enough to put $10,000 in."

Galardi said he first reported the cash payoff six to eight months ago. Pancer and his defense colleagues noted that nothing about the alleged payoff has appeared anywhere on any notes, tape recordings or other media produced by the federal investigators in the case.

Galardi said he didn't see the government taking notes or tape recordings when he reported the payoff.

Jerry Coughlin, attorney for Zucchet, asked how Galardi could forget such a payoff especially when faced with the trauma of the May 2003 federal crackdown on his activities.

"You completely forgot that just two months later? You forgot it through all the other meetings?"

Coughlin insisted that Galardi's unreliable memory of the payoff and other issues was because the events he has described did not happen.

"It didn't occur to you because it never happened, and the $10,000 never happened," Coughlin said.

Galardi, less forcefully, disagreed.

"It definitely happened."

Attorneys for the defense also noted that FBI surveillance tapes from Malone's meetings with the city councilmen do not include any reference to the cash. Galardi said Malone told him the day after the alleged drop that he had met with all three councilmen.

Galardi's version, however, was supported by Thompson, once a cocktail waitress and bartender in Galardi's strip clubs.

Thompson said she saw Galardi give the envelope containing $10,000 to Malone during their stay at the coastal resort.

"Unfortunately I knew we were coming down to Montage!