Hawaii Deal Links Moore, Bingo Operator -- Hockey-Association Head Says It's Friendship, Not Politics

PART TWO OF A LOOK AT CHARITY BINGO

As the Legislature's voice on the Gambling Commission and the ranking Democrat on a state Senate committee handling gambling laws, Sen. Ray Moore has been helping the state's big bingo operators for years.

At the same time, as a private citizen, Moore quietly invested in some prime Hawaiian property four years ago. His real-estate partner: the founder of the state's largest nonprofit bingo game.

Moore put $162,500 into a three-acre view lot on Hawaii's Kona Coast and about $186,000 into a new house in 1990 and 1991. He says Robert Beadle, president of the board of the Seattle Junior Hockey Association, put in an equal amount.

"It was a handshake deal," Moore said, in which both paid cash. It was a good deal, too; a Hawaii realtor estimates the property is now worth more than $1 million.

But was it an ethical deal?

Moore, a Seattle Democrat who recently announced he will appeal a decision to disqualify him as a Washington voter because he lives in Hawaii, says there's no connection between his Senate work and private life.

"I have done no favors for anyone in the area of the Gambling Commission," Moore said by telephone from Hawaii. "If there is anybody who is totally clean, it is Ray Moore."

Moore says his support for bingo, such as the Beadle group's $10.3 million-a-year game, comes only from an interest in helping charitable causes. Moore himself helped to found the charity Food Lifeline in 1979.

Beadle, a successful businessman who owns an aerospace-parts business in Seattle, calls Moore "a super guy." Their relationship, he says, is based on more than 20 years of friendship, not politics.

Beadle says Moore has been a friend of the bingo people for years. Beadle added that he's gone out of his way to avoid any appearance of impropriety by not contributing directly to the state senator or making any personal requests for Moore's assistance.

State records show, however, that Moore received $775 from Aircraft Standards, Inc., the company owned by Beadle, between 1985 and 1989. Moore accepted another $500 during those years from a political-action committee controlled by Beadle, and Beadle served on Moore's campaign steering committee in 1986.

In addition, the Seattle Junior Hockey Association charity gave $10,000 in gambling profits to Moore's pet charity, Food Lifeline, in 1990.

Moore has been a nonvoting member of the Gambling Commission since 1981. He hasn't tried to lobby or change rulings, fellow commissioners say, but he's attended meetings and been influential because of his role as a key legislator.

Over the years, Moore also has taken actions that helped the Beadles and their bingo game directly:

-- When the Gambling Commission nearly revoked Seattle Junior Hockey's operating license in 1982 because of concerns that bingo receipts had been misused by the Beadles and others for vacations, meals, and other personal purposes, Moore was among those who urged regulators not to be too hard on them.

Keith Kisor, then-executive director of the commission, said Moore "never gave up saying we were being too tough on them. He kept saying, `Why can't your guys be a little less mean?' " After several months, the state dropped the investigation in return for the hockey group paying $10,000 for the cost of an audit.

-- In 1988, when commission member Tom Keefe Sr. suggested half the bingo tax revenues being paid to cities be set aside to pay for local police to join with gambling agents in enforcing gambling laws, Moore wrote a letter on Senate stationery opposing the proposal.

"Although there is zero cost to the taxpayers, I feel the growth of the commission staff and duplications are overcostly and an unreasonable burden to the licensees," he wrote.

Moore also wrote, in the same letter, that he might call Senate hearings on the gambling question.

-- Last year, Moore's committee pushed through a bill that made it discretionary, rather than mandatory, as some had argued, for the Gambling Commission to limit the salaries of bingo operators.

Robert Beadle's brother, John, is paid more - $82,000 - than any other director of a gambling-funded nonprofit group in the state. John Beadle has been a leading target of salary complaints by people who say more of the money should go to charity. The commission has not exercised its power to regulate any salaries of bingo operators.

Moore also sponsored a bill last year that would have allowed charities and nonprofits to hire professional gambling companies to run up to 18 casinos statewide. Forty-five percent of the profits would have gone to the nonprofits, 45 percent to the gambling companies, and 10 percent to the state. The bill died.

While both Moore and Robert Beadle deny Seattle Junior Hockey exerted any undue influence on the senator, others from the bingo organization have made it clear to regulators that they believe the group has strings to pull.

When the group disagreed with some action by commission staff, they would say, "Well, we'll see what Sen. Moore thinks about that," recalled Ben Bishop, the Gambling Commission's assistant director for licensing.

Bishop said he never saw Moore speak to the staff or try to affect their work. "But I could say informally I figured there's some influence there through the Beadles."

Asked whether the real-estate deal could be viewed as a payback for Moore's work, Robert Beadle said, "You know, that never entered my mind, because we were doing it 50-50."

The Moore-Beadle land deal was known, but not questioned, by a few Gambling Commission insiders. "It didn't raise any eyebrows," Executive Director Frank Miller said.

The financial link has remained largely unknown to legislators, who have kept Moore in his position as an ex officio representative on the Gambling Commission.

Republican Sen. George Sellar, chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, declined to speculate on the propriety of the arrangement. But he said there may be questions about whether the Hawaii deal has resulted in special favors.

"I would guess that if somebody brought up the charge and we found that Ray had done something to influence the (gambling) commission in a way that favored his business partner, we would find that unethical," Sellar said.

"We live in a fishbowl and we feel we not only have to act in ethical ways, but we have to appear to be ethical."

Conflict-of-interest rules do not prohibit private business deals between legislators and regulated interests, as long as financial holdings are disclosed as required and there are no unreported gifts in the deal. If Beadle had done financial favors for the senator, it could be termed an illegal gratuity.

Asked about the possible conflict of interest, Moore said: "I don't even understand. We are 50-50 partners. We put up the same amount of money to buy this property and build the house. It was all cash. There's no financing."

Moore retreated from that position when he was told a reporter possessed mortgage documents, filed in Hawaii, proving that, in fact, $200,000 had been borrowed from a bank. Ray and Virginia Moore and Robert and Dorothy Beadle all signed a $150,000 mortgage in March 1991 and a $50,000 second mortgage in August 1991 from Pacific Northwest Bank. The signatures were notarized.

Confronted with those documents, Moore said he signed the construction loans as a convenience to Beadle.

"Obviously I have to sign off on any money that has to be borrowed. I borrowed no money. My money was all cash," he said. "If (Beadle) wanted to borrow against his equity in the house, that's his business."

Moore refused to provide further financial details of the house deal. He said it would be misinterpreted by the news media.

In response to questions from The Seattle Times, the state Public Disclosure Commission has started to investigate Moore's failure to report his debt on the $200,000 in construction mortgages as well as a $68,100 mortgage he assumed from Beadle in connection with the purchase of the property in June 1990.

According to Beadle, Moore was indebted on the $68,100 mortgage, but signed the other $200,000 in mortgages as a mere acknowledgement to the bank that he owned a 50 percent undivided interest.

"He doesn't guarantee the mortgage or anything," Beadle said.

The public documents on the loan make no such distinction.

Patrick Fahey, chairman and president of Pacific Northwest Bank, which issued all of the loans, said Moore put up his interest in the Hawaii property as collateral. Fahey declined to talk about details of the payment plan, which is not public.

Fahey said Moore and Beadle have both been original customers of the bank, founded in 1988, and the Hawaii loan was subject to special scrutiny at the bank because of the connection to Moore. Moore, a former stockbroker, has chaired the Senate committee handling banking legislation for seven years.

Fahey said the bank normally limits its loans to Washington properties, but makes loans for some out-of-state second homes for its better customers.

Melissa Warheit, Public Disclosure Commission director, said elected officials are required by law to report all creditors over $1,000, except retail. She said voter knowledge of who their representatives owe money to is at the heart of the disclosure law.

Warheit said Moore's mortgages would be investigated during the next month. The commission is also looking into whether Moore illegally reimbursed some personal expenses with campaign funds.

And, in another inquiry prompted by questions from The Times, the commission is looking at whether Moore reported the sale of his Seattle residence as required. It was sold in August 1989, but the sale was not listed on Moore's report to the PDC covering 1989 financial interests. It was disclosed on a report filed Feb. 11, 1991 - three months after Moore's re-election.

While the investment in Hawaii property has proved to be political bane, it's been a financial boon.

The property has an assessed value of $465,100, but that's unrealistically low because the real estate is pledged for agricultural use in a coffee farm for the time being. There are also banana and citrus plants. The house overlooks Kailua Bay on the west coast of the island of Hawaii.

A local real-estate agent who evaluated the property said its true market value exceeds $1 million. Slightly larger but older houses on 3-acre lots nearby were recently listed for $1.6 million and $2.4 million.

That means the Moores paid roughly $350,000 in 1990 and 1991 for a property interest now worth well over $500,000.

Beadle said the property is not worth that much but he said it probably will be soon.

The ranch-style house has three bedrooms, four bathrooms and four other rooms in 3,318 square feet. It includes a ceramics studio, a two-car garage and a 562-square-foot swimming pool.

Beadle said he and his wife, Dorothy, and their two grown sons use the home, as does his brother and some of his employees. He said the real-estate venture made sense because he could stay at the Hawaii house in the winter while Moore was in the Legislature in Olympia.

"He goes over there in the summer, I go over in the winter," Beadle said.

With Moore's announcement that he won't seek re-election this fall, that will change.

"Well, he's going to be there all the time now," Beadle said, "but we've got enough space for two."