Scandal In Phoenix

Arizona has an image problem. Almost three years ago, Governor Evan Mecham was impeached for misusing state funds. Last November voters turned down a , referendum to make Martin Luther King Day a paid state holiday, touching off boycotts that may deprive Arizona of the 1993 Super Bowl. Last week a major political scandal rocked the state as a grand jury charged seven legislators, five lobbyists and five others with felonies including bribery, money laundering and filing false campaign statements.

The product of a 16-month, $1.4 million investigation by the Phoenix police and the Maricopa County attorney's office, the indictment charged the accused with accepting $370,000 from an undercover agent posing as a Las Vegas "gaming consultant" building support for casino gambling. Police say the sting began as an investigation of an illegal gambling network that had attracted the interest of organized crime. "We didn't know at the time how earth shattering it would be," said Phoenix Police Chief Ruben Ortega, "until the evidence began to grow."

Arizona thus became the fifth state in recent months to be tainted by a legislative corruption scandal. In South Carolina, 10 legislators have been indicted in a vote-selling scheme. In California two former state senators were convicted on corruption charges last year. Gib Lewis, speaker of the Texas House, has been accused of soliciting and not reporting a gift. In New York, Assembly Speaker Mel Miller has pleaded innocent to charges that he was involved in an alleged real estate scam.

At the center of Arizona's sting operation -- quickly dubbed Azscam -- was a flamboyant Las Vegan who called himself J. Anthony Vincent. According to the indictment, Vincent assuaged the legislators' fears about hidden cameras and once reportedly stripped in front of a lobbyist to show he wasn't concealing a microphone. In fact, Vincent was an undercover agent named Joseph C. Stedino. Ortega says that 95% of the evidence comes from audio-and videotapes. In one police videotape, state representative Don Kenney, who faces 28 counts, is seen stuffing $55,000 in cash into a gym bag and joking about cameras being in the room.

Some of the accused have charged the police with grandstanding and entrapment. Says Sue Laybe, a legislator who has been charged with taking $24,960 in bribes: "Neither I nor any of my co-defendants had any intention or predisposition to take illegal contributions. It is shocking that hundreds of thousands of dollars of city money would be spent trying to entrap honest politicians." Shocking indeed.