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Summer 1992 Oakridge
Corporation partnership formed by William S. "Shep" McCook and partners.
December 1992 Supervisor Jerry Eaves takes office; Oakridge requests a
billboard permit.
December 1993 Eaves and his wife spend New Year's at the Stardust. McCook
pays the bill.
November 1994 Eaves votes for Oakridge's billboard lease.
August & December 1995 Eaves votes to twice to amend Oakridge's lease.
January 1996 Eaves and his chief of staff, Walt Pudinski, stay at the
Stardust. Eaves' bill is $229, and Pudinski's bill is $426. A week later,
then-County Administrative Officer James Hlawek stays in the Presidential
Suite at a cost of $,1956. McCook pays the bills.
June 1996 Eaves votes on a third amendment for the billboard lease.
February 1997 Eaves' daughter receives a Stardust stay worth $958.
June 1997 Board of Supervisors approves a transfer of the billboard land
lease, enabling McCook to sell five billboards for $4.4 million. Eaves'
daughter gets a Stardust stay worth $267.
July 1997 Eaves' grandson gets a Stardust stay worth $1,276.
September 1997 Pudinski, Eaves' chief of staff, gets a Stardust stay worth
$256.
June 1998 Eaves' daughter gets a Stardust stay worth $287.
Source: court documents in civil and criminal cases.
For years, the man once called the "King of San Bernardino County" was vocal
about his role in the county's corruption scandal: He did nothing wrong.
Flown in from his Wyoming vacation at the county's expense, former
Supervisor Jerry Eaves testified Wednesday that he never considered the free
Las Vegas hotel stays he got from a billboard company owner to be bribes.
"No, it was a small amount. The rooms at the Stardust are thirty, forty,
fifty bucks. I never thought about it being a bribe," Eaves said.
San Bernardino County is suing billboard company owner William "Shep" McCook
as well as nine other individuals and businesses. It accuses the defendants
of defrauding the county of millions of dollars.
McCook and his company are accused of paying off then-County Administrative
Officer James Hlawek to influence the Board of Supervisors to approve
billboards that would later be sold in 1997 for $4.4 million. The county is
suing to get that money.
Eaves withheld public disclosure of the trips for years, until they became
the subject of federal and state bribery charges in 2001. Although the
former supervisor has given interviews, grand jury testimony and sworn
depositions in the past few years about the deals described in the county's
lawsuit, Wednesday was his first protracted public testimony on the events.
Eaves testified in a gravelly voice, and his demeanor on the stand was
mostly calm. His face did turn red as he defended as understandable his
occasional lack of recall of events and of votes that he had cast nearly a
decade ago.
Would not change vote
He said he would not have changed his billboard votes even if he had known
that Hlawek had accepted a $15,000 bribe from McCook, the billboard company
owner. The billboards are north and west of the interchange of interstates
10 and 215.
"If I found out that Jim Hlawek was taking a bribe from McCook, I would have
called the D.A. and had him investigated, but I don't think it would have
had anything to do with that contract," Eaves said in response to a question
posed by a county lawyer.
Attorney Leonard Gumport, representing the county, argued that the board
would not have repeatedly extended McCook's lease of county land in Colton
for a billboard project from 1994 to 1997 if it had known that Eaves, Hlawek
and others had been treated to free hotel stays by the billboard company
owner.
McCook has pleaded not guilty to bribery charges in state and federal courts
involving the billboards.
Defense attorney Randall Waier, representing McCook, has argued that any
payments by McCook to Hlawek or others are irrelevant because the Board of
Supervisors had no choice but to approve McCook's 1997 request to reassign
his lease to the buyer of the billboards, Eller Media Co.
Even if he knew of the Hlawek bribes, Eaves said he would have supported the
billboard projects.
Eaves said he helped McCook get the county's decision to reassign the lease
to the billboards' buyer accomplished weeks earlier so that McCook could
collect the $4.4 million sale proceeds he needed for a family financial
emergency.
"I wanted to help him out," Eaves said. "His dad was going to lose (his)
ranch."
Throughout the 1992 to 1997 period when the McCook billboard project was
before the county, Eaves, his family members and work associates took trips
to the Stardust Hotel.
In federal and state criminal cases, Eaves was accused of accepting two
trips for himself and eight for relatives and work associates.
His first trip, which began Dec. 30, 1993, and lasted for three days,
spanning New Year's Eve festivities, was valued at $573. McCook, who was
indicted in federal bribery cases, was at the Stardust on the same days,
according to billing statements used as evidence in the civil case. Eaves
said Wednesday that he had won that trip in a County Management Association
raffle.
The civil case was filed against Eaves and 21 other defendants in 2000. He
settled out of the case for a $7,200 payment to the county and an agreement
to cooperate in the county's civil case. He retired in January, days before
he pleaded guilty in state court to a felony charge of conspiring with
McCook in the billboard deal. |
