Defense: Malone unaware of scheme

Thursday, May 12, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

SAN DIEGO -- The lawyer for Lance Malone told jurors Wednesday that the former Clark County commissioner and Metro Police officer had been unaware of a strip club owner's conspiracy to bribe San Diego city councilmen.

"Don't tell Lance," lawyer Dominic Gentile said in his opening words to the jury, quoting Michael Galardi, the former owner of strip clubs in San Diego and Las Vegas. "If Lance knows ... he'll be a witness against us."

Malone is facing federal charges of bribery of a police officer, extortion and wire fraud as part of a scheme to influence San Diego councilmen in an effort to overturn a "no touch" ordinance that had adversely affected Galardi's San Diego Cheetahs club.

Galardi has pleaded guilty to charges in the public corruption cases in both cities and is providing evidence for the prosecutors.

Malone's co-defendants in San Diego are San Diego councilmen Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet and David Cowan, an aide to the late councilman Charles Lewis.

Malone faces similar charges in Las Vegas in a trial scheduled to start in September but expected to start at least four months later. Malone's co-defendants in Las Vegas include two of his former colleagues on the county commission, Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey. Former commissioner Erin Kenny has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the prosecution.

Gentile said in his opening statement that Malone was working for what he thought was a legitimate political effort to overturn the "no-touch" rule in San Diego, a rule that would gut the profitability of the club. Part of that effort meant funneling campaign contributions to city councilmen or council candidates.

Those campaign contributions were designed to bring access and assistance in learning the process of making legislation in San Diego and nothing more, Gentile said.

On the other side, the government knowingly provided Malone, Galardi and Cheetahs manager John D'Intino with counterfeit information through a man who used the alias "Tony Montagna." That operative is a "con man" and paid informant with a long list of criminal charges, Gentile said. The authorities also had a San Diego Police vice-squad detective offer inaccurate information to Malone, Galardi and D'Intino while pretending to accept bribes from the club owners, Gentile argued.

In a detailed timeline Gentile presented to the court, the attorney quotes Montagna telling Malone at one point that the detective, Russ Bristol, is taking bribes. But in a subsequent conversation between Malone and Galardi has the strip club owner denying that Bristol is on the take.

"Lance Malone was shielded from the information for bribes that were in fact paid to a policeman by the name of Russ Bristol by that informant (Montagna)," Gentile said.

Gentile told the jury that they would see four primary characters in the trial, which is expected to take about three months. They would include:

Galardi, "a frightened, disenfranchised rich guy,"

Montagna, whom he described as "paid instigator who grew out of a criminal culture,"

D'Intino, a "true believer," who really believed that people had a right to adult entertainment,

And Malone, a man who "had never had a drink in his life, had never smoked a cigarette in his life and had never been in a topless club except in (Metro Police) uniform to respond to a call."

At least as far as Malone is concerned, "the evidence will show that there was no agreement to break the law," Gentile said.

The strip club operators distrusted Malone and so kept the politician-turned-lobbyist out of the loop, Gentile said. From transcripts of police wiretaps, he quoted D'Intino: "Everybody in Las Vegas hates Lance ... You gotta be careful with Lance" and "I don't like Lance. Never did. I think he's an idiot. "

Gentile also outlines the local and federal governments' efforts to pass and protect the no-touch rule that, he has contended, was an effort to shut down strip clubs altogether. Gentile in his opener noted that a 1996 study paid for by the San Diego police found that 65 percent of city residents supported nude clubs, and in ranking them as a nuisance to be investigated put them above loud parties but less important that grafitti.

Nonetheless, the police and city council in 2000 participated in a law-writing process that led to the no-touch rule. It was the same year that Montagna saw Cheetahs manager D'Intino reimburse strippers for campaign contributions, an action that breaks the law, Gentile noted.

Montagna took that observation to the FBI, which put a recording wire on the informant in October, the same month that the new local "no touching' rule is passed by the city council.

Montagna or his vice squad or FBI allies or all of them provided real tips to police raids and, critically, also served up false information about police attitudes toward the new rule, Gentile said. Galardi, Malone and others were told the police did not support the rule -- when, in fact, police were in favor of the new rule, Gentile said.

Attorneys for Inzunza and Zucchet have echoed Gentile's arguments on the counterfeit information, saying their clients were working with the understanding that some police opposed the no-touch rule because it would take resources away from other kinds of police work.

Finally, Gentile noted that Malone told the strip club operators that breaking the law was not an option.

The government transcripts quote Malone as saying "One thing I told Ralph Inzunza from the very beginning (is) we don't do anything illegal. I won't go to jail for anybody or anything. I got two little kids and they need their dad. It's just as easy to do the right thing, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't."

Gentile along with Jerry Coughlin, the lawyer representing attorney Zucchet, Gentile and Michael Crowley, the lawyer for alleged co-conspirator David Cowan, a council aide indicted on a single count of providing false information to the FBI, took up most of Wednesday's time in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller.

However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wheat had time to question San Diego Police Captain Christopher Ball on details of the strip club industry, the rules governing the conduct of the adult entertainers before and after the no-touch provision was passed by the city council, and other elements that provided a background for the case.

Ball told the court that Cheetahs, unlike other clubs, had a pattern of violating the new no-touch rule or an older rule that said the strippers had to be clothed when within 6 feet of customers.

"They weren't complying with the law. They were not complying with the 6-foot limitation. They were not complying with the no-touch limitation."

Although the government got most of its hits so far in the trial with Tuesday's opening statement, Malone and Gentile agreed outside the courtroom that their response was good.

"I think we did all right," Gentile said.

"We did great," Malone responded.

Following the court action, Gentile said Montagna, the government's key informant, had participated in a "charade" designed to trip up Galardi, his lieutenants and Malone. Malone, he said, had told Montagna to do some secret recording of conversations after Montagna suggested that Metro Police were seeking bribes in Las Vegas. That would have provided the proof Montagna would have needed to turn the tables on corrupt cops, Gentile, speaking for Malone, said.

The irony was that Montagna was at the time wearing a wire for the FBI, Gentile added.

"We're not saying (it was) entrapment," Gentile said. "I think it goes way beyond entrapment to being fundamental government misconduct."

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