POLITICIANS, CARDINAL REGRET SUPPORT FOR COCAINE DEALER

Clinton Commuted Los Angeles Man's 15-year Sentence Before Leaving Office

LOS ANGELES -- Cardinal Roger Mahony and former California Assembly Speaker
Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday that they regretted writing letters in
support of a Los Angeles cocaine dealer whose sentence was commuted on
President Clinton's last day in office.

Clinton's commutation of Carlos Vignali's 15-year federal prison sentence
for his role in a multistate cocaine ring was detailed Sunday in the Los
Angeles Times. On Monday, the Times disclosed that Mahony and several local
political figures, including two mayoral candidates, had lobbied for the
presidential gesture.

``I was approached about the possibility of writing a letter to former
President Bill Clinton on behalf of Mr. Carlos Vignali Jr.,'' Mahony, the
Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, said in a written statement. ``The
purpose of the letter was to seek a further review of the facts, the law and
the processes used in his case. I made it clear that I was incapable of
making a judgment about his guilt or innocence.

``Regardless of the merits of the case, I made a serious mistake in writing
to the president and I broke my decades-long practice of never sending a
letter on behalf of any person whom I did not know personally. I apologize
for not following my own principles in this matter,'' Mahony said. The
archbishop did not say in the statement who approached him. He did not
return telephone calls seeking clarification.

Villaraigosa, who is running for mayor of Los Angeles, said he believes that
he also erred when he sent a similar letter five years ago on behalf of
Vignali, whose father, Horacio, has donated more than $160,000 to state and
federal office holders since his son was incarcerated.

``I wrote that letter without talking to prosecutors on the other end,''
Villaraigosa said in an interview. ``I shouldn't have done that. I went with
my heart as a father and not with my head.''

In addition to Villaraigosa and Mahony, Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles,
and former Rep. Esteban Torres sent letters to the White House on Vignali's
behalf.

Many of the letters, some written as early as 1996 and others sent last
year, suggested that Vignali was wrongly convicted and that his case
deserved a careful review by the White House. That view conflicted sharply
with the position of federal law enforcement authorities, who insisted that
Vignali deserved his sentence for his central role in the narcotics
operation that stretched from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, delivering more
than 800 pounds of cocaine.

Vignali was freed from prison Jan. 20 -- the day George W. Bush assumed the
presidency -- after serving six years.

Becerra -- a mayoral candidate who received more than $3,500 in campaign
contributions from Vignali family members for the mayor's race -- said he
wrote the letters to urge the White House to make sure that justice had been
served in the Vignali case. He said he never explicitly asked Clinton to
commute the man's sentence -- though he did call the White House on Jan. 19,
during Clinton's last hours in office, to see where the case stood. He also
called the Justice Department, he said.

``Knowing that justice is not yet blind to color in America and with time
running out for the review of the Vignali case, I added my voice to that of
other community leaders . . . asking for a review of the case,'' Becerra
said.

Both Becerra and Villaraigosa said they were asked by Vignali's father to
write the letters. The father told the Times last week that he had asked no
one to work on behalf of his son.

``It was a conversation between fathers as much as anything,'' said
Villaraigosa, who described the father as a close friend. ``He was very
distraught. . . . I wasn't writing for a pardon, I was writing for them to
review the matter.''

But Villaraigosa insisted that his efforts had nothing to do with the $2,795
Vignali had donated to his past campaigns.