With the campaign for California governor in full swing, veteran
L.A. Times investigative reporter Henry Weinstein decided it was
time to dig into the actual record of candidate Bill Simon when
he was a federal prosecutor in New York. In speeches and on his
Web site, Simon had claimed that his work was integral to convicting
mob bosses. He also said that while he was an assistant U.S. attorney
he had taken on "corporate wrongdoers" and "the
worst polluters." Weinstein began with a complete listing
from TRAC of all matters handled by Simon during his three-year
stint as a prosecutor. Using this roadmap as a guide, he scoured
federal files in New York and at the federal archive in Missouri.
With this documentary information in hand, he then conducted several
interviews with the candidate. Weinstein found little to substantiate
Simon's claims. And his meticulously researched article ran as
Part 1 of a front-page series profiling the Bill Simon.
