Bradley Won’t Face Charges of Bribery : Investigation: The D.A. says there is insufficient evidence that the ex-mayor accepted illegal payments from a housing project developer.

Ending a prolonged investigation, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Wednesday there is insufficient evidence to prosecute former Mayor Tom Bradley on bribery charges for helping a developer who subsequently received city approval of a controversial low-income housing project.

The district attorney’s office said some of the activities by several other public officials on behalf of developer Harold R. Washington Jr. appeared suspicious during the years when Washington was lobbying for city subsidies to refurbish two Central City apartment buildings, collectively known as Sheridan Manor.

Nevertheless, “there is insufficient evidence that public officials participated in a bribe,” the district attorney’s office said in a wide-ranging formal memorandum.

The memo is the first detailed public acknowlegment by the district attorney’s office of the scope of the political corruption investigation, including the fact that Bradley and at least four other city officials were the focus of a criminal bribery probe.

Bradley, now a lawyer in private practice, had no comment on the announcement. Washington, 72, and others who were targets of the investigation conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department, could not be reached for comment. All have denied wrongdoing.

The investigation was launched after former partners of Washington in Sheridan Manor told police that Washington claimed he bribed Bradley and other public officials to get lucrative city housing contracts.

At the heart of the probe was the question of whether Bradley accepted bribes or improper political contributions from Washington, one of his campaign fund raisers and a longtime acquaintance, and whether the mayor broke any laws in assisting him.

The allegations against Bradley were first aired in 1991, when The Times reported that he had repeatedly intervened with city and federal agencies on behalf of Washington. Bradley’s periodic assistance spanned seven years, involving Sheridan Manor and other projects spearheaded by the developer. The efforts included nine instances in which the mayor personally arranged or presided over City Hall meetings.

In its memo Wednesday, the district attorney’s office said authorities had also been investigating the roles of former City Council President John Ferraro, former Councilman David Cunningham, former Community Redevelopment Agency Administrator John J. Tuite and CRA attorney Murray Kane to see whether they improperly helped Washington gain city approval of the project. The CRA provided at least $1.5 million in subsidized loans and other assistance to Washington on the Sheridan Manor project.

Prosecutors said that despite the fact that Bradley accepted campaign contributions from Washington, gave him easy access to his office and intervened on several occasions, evidence was insufficient to prove bribery.

Among other things, Washington collected at least $3,500 in campaign donations for Bradley’s 1989 reelection effort while seeking Bradley’s help on the Sheridan Manor project.

Ultimately, the city arranged for Washington to assume ownership of Sheridan Manor, which consisted of two buildings in Koreatown and MacArthur Park. That cleared the way for Washington to refurbish them and turn them into 160 units of affordable housing.

Roger Gunson, head deputy of the district attorney’s special investigations division, conceded that the activities could appear suspicious, but said his office could not prove more than a coincidence between Washington’s contributions and Bradley’s actions. “We could not show it was a quid pro quo,” he said.

Washington has said that his contributions were not a “payoff” but rather independent donations from several people during a fund-raising affair he gave for the mayor. The district attorney’s office said some of that money was resubmitted under the names of others, which it said appears “suspicious (but) can also be interpreted as an innocent mistake . . . on the part of Washington.”

Prosecutors said they determined that Washington’s group was awarded the contract to take over the buildings because it submitted the lowest bid to refurbish and run them.

The district attorney’s memo, which was unsigned, said Washington’s partners told authorities that Washington “stated that certain politicians needed to be ‘brought into harmony’ with the project and that he ‘paid off’ politicians” to help him obtain the project. The memo named those politicians as Cunningham and Ferraro, whose districts included the two buildings, and the CRA’s Tuite and Kane.

The district attorney’s office said that while Washington did hire Tuite and Cunningham as consultants on the project--Tuite before he became chief of the CRA, and Cunningham after he left his council seat--those payments did not constitute bribes. Evidence indicates Tuite “ceased his participation” in the Sheridan Manor project when he took over the CRA. Prosecutors did say that $15,000 in consultant payments to Cunningham and an aide were “suspicious.”