The Center of the South Gate Storm

Albert Robles has called opponents hallucinating dogs with rabies and pigs at the trough. He has brawled atop boardroom tables, scuffled with rivals, screamed Spanish-language profanities in South Gate City Hall.

Harmless bravado and bluster, it seemed to many.

But on Tuesday morning, the South Gate treasurer is scheduled to appear in criminal court, to be charged with making murderous threats against two state legislators and a police officer. Robles, also accused of possessing illegal weapons, denies the charges.

Before Robles came along, the working-class city of South Gate, population 96,000, rarely captured much notice outside southeast Los Angeles County. It does now.

In the last 12 months, investigators from the district attorney’s office have probed one Robles ally after another. Secretary of State Bill Jones last month declared the city’s electoral system the most corrupt in California.

Angry residents have staged raucous acts of civil disobedience, often at increasingly riotous City Council meetings, calling Robles and other leaders “crooks” and “liars” as police escort them out of the council chambers.

Standing defiantly at the center of it all is Robles.

A former foster-care child who became South Gate’s youngest mayor at 26, he has never made excuses for his outsider status within Latino political circles. Always nattily attired and at turns affable and intense, the 37-year-old Robles can quote Shakespeare and John F. Kennedy one minute, and then lean in the next, chin forward, spitting out his words like punches.

“Call me a pit bull, say that I lack tact, say that I’m crude,” said Robles in an interview before his arrest. “I’m not that suave, go-along, get-along kind of guy. I call a spade a spade. I decided I wasn’t going to be a whore of the big guys, the big sharks. The only reason I have these big political enemies is because I do tell them no.”

His supporters call him a brilliant visionary, a misunderstood politician unfairly targeted because he bucked the political establishment. Critics call him a street-smart bully.

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Backers, Opponents Agree on His Tenacity

One point everyone agrees on is this: Robles, a fiercely intelligent and scrappy competitor, will tenaciously fight the charges.

“Albert would be the perfect villain in a Hollywood movie,” joked Pico Rivera, a cop spearheading an anti-Robles voter recall drive. “He’s chubby and ugly, but he gets the girls, drives the best cars, and no matter what you do, you can’t kill him. At the end of the movie, it’s his bloody hand that comes across the screen. He’s still alive to come back and haunt you another day.”

Robles launched his career 10 years ago, a recent UCLA graduate bent on changing the world. Someday, he hoped, he would be in the governor’s mansion.

But first came South Gate.

He arrived there in 1991 and within one year entered City Hall a councilman. He was elected city treasurer in 1997 and a year later ran for state treasurer, stunning political observers by placing second in the Democratic primary.

His campaign, instead of creating excitement among Latino leaders, was dismissed as a fluke because his was the only Latino name on the ballot.

The finish served mainly to cast a permanent spotlight on Robles. As a board member at a local water district, he was criticized for using public money for acting and flying lessons, as well as travel to exotic locales. A financial management firm where Robles works received contracts at a water district where his sister was a board member.

Robles denied allegations of a conflict-of-interest violation, saying his sister had never benefited financially from the contract.

His feuds with fellow politicians have blasted across television screens and the dais. He called state Sen. Martha Escutia a pig at the trough and dismissed state Sen. Richard Polanco with an expletive. One South Gate councilman said tearfully at a public hearing that Robles’ personal attacks contributed to a suicide attempt.

At a closed-door water district meeting, in front of witnesses, Robles jumped atop a table and took a swing at a fellow board member, according to sources. He also scuffled with his elderly rival, South Gate Councilman Henry Gonzalez, who said he suffered a bruised rib from the altercation.

Robles’ tenure has coincided with a sweeping degeneration in South Gate politics. All sides have been targets, but the most vicious attacks have been aimed at opponents of Robles.

In campaign mailers, Robles’ opponents have been called deadbeat dads, tax scofflaws and drunks. Robles’ most recent victory in the treasurer’s race was over a man once falsely portrayed in fliers as a child molester.

One Robles opponent has been shot--Gonzalez suffered minor head injuries--and another’s business was firebombed in crimes that have never been solved. Police will not comment on their investigations.

The treasurer has strongly denied any culpability, saying he is set up as a “boogeyman.”

Robles could also be called the invisible man.

Last September, he vanished from public view, an absence that fuels the perception that he runs a shadow government, deciding the city’s future in meetings at his favorite health clubs, diners and coffee shops.

In the weeks leading up to his arrest, an odd game of cat-and-mouse developed. Robles’ enemies tailed Robles’ black Lexus in traffic, photographed him at his restaurant meetings with associates, watched him work the phones at the gym.

“It’s almost like an instant network,” Rivera said. “People see him, they start calling and it gets back to community leaders. Everybody feels responsible to report Robles sightings.”

Robles said he had to alter his lifestyle. He bought a corner house, “watches his back,” and sleeps with a loaded 9-millimeter handgun near his bed.

“I don’t live in fear. Do I take a lot of precautions? Absolutely. God helps those that help themselves,” he said.

Robles denies controlling the city, saying he is merely the treasurer, a nonvoting office. But when three Robles-backed council members took control of the council in December 2000, the city changed course immediately.

Council salaries tripled, longtime employees were fired, and Robles’ allies and business associates won city contracts. A sampling:

This February, the council allowed a former business partner of Robles to lease a 15-acre plot of city land at a fraction of its market value, for as long as 55 years.

In another instance, Lou Moret, who was a board member at a financial firm where Robles worked as a consultant, was hired last year as a special consultant and launched a drastic restructuring of city government that drew strong protests.

He suggested, for example, that the city explore obtaining police services from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a move that would essentially disband the city Police Department. Both police unions are leaders in the recall drive to oust Robles.

Moret’s hiring did not violate any laws but deepened suspicions that Robles wields significant influence over his council allies.

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Angry Residents Attend Council Meetings

Lashing back at the city’s police and other proposals, angry residents have turned weekly council meetings into rowdy standing-room-only affairs--Latino immigrants sitting with off-duty cops and senior citizens. They have banged sticks and waved signs reading, “Albert Robles, the party is over,” and “We’re taking back our city.” Some dangled marionettes in front of the council members, suggesting they are Robles’ puppets.

But where was Robles during all this?

Although he stopped attending council meetings--Robles likens the experience to visiting a zoo--his presence still loomed. Off-duty officers once went so far as to scour the City Hall grounds during a council meeting, peeking in windows and roaming hallways trying to find out whether the elusive treasurer was literally working behind the scenes. They didn’t find him.

Last month, the council ordered a curious addition to Robles’ office: a bulletproof window.

In the recent interview, Robles touted his accomplishments, saying he has helped modernize the city and planned improvements for its aging sewer system.

In the end, Robles said, his greatest satisfaction comes from the little things, like the time he helped a woman change a flat tire, and the fact that many residents send him cards at Christmas.

“You know, when I’m thinking about what I’ve done, those are things that remind that I’m a good human being, and that my creator looks down on me and winks every once in a while and says, ‘Keep up the good work,’” he said.

Crowds at council meetings take a different view.

At a recent session, Mayor Xochilt Ruvalcaba, a Robles ally, started to tell a fable-like story about a small village terrorized by a murderous hillside villain who kills children. It was her roundabout way of explaining how she voted on a council matter.

Ruvalcaba continued her tale, saying the villagers asked themselves who was “the maniac throwing the children down the river”?

The crowd interrupted her. They had their own answer, more than 100 voices screaming as one: “Albert!”