Ex-Senator Accused of Extortion : Trial: Clay Jackson says then-state Sen. Alan Robbins sought $250,000. Testimony contradicts Robbins who says the former lobbyist bribed him.

SACRAMENTO — Former top lobbyist Clay Jackson testified Monday at his federal corruption trial that then-state Sen. Alan Robbins unsuccessfully tried to extort $250,000 from him and that he strung Robbins along to protect his insurance industry clients.

“I was stunned. I had never heard anything like that since I had been in the legislative process,” Jackson said. He testified that Robbins, the former chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, suggested shifting crucial legislation to his committee in return for $250,000 in June, 1991 at a meeting in Robbins’ Capitol office.

“I told him (transferring the bills) was preposterous,” Jackson added. “There was nobody in the Democratic leadership that could afford to move the whole thing” to Robbins’ committee, referring to the public reaction to such a move.

Jackson said he paid Robbins “not one dime,” but that he pretended to negotiate with him “in order to mollify an extortionist.” He said he never offered or paid a bribe, contradicting the earlier testimony of Robbins, the government’s star witness at the trial.

But Jackson, a former $2 million-a-year lobbyist and once the insurance industry’s premier advocate, acknowledged he met with Robbins repeatedly during 1991. Many of their conversations were taped by Robbins and played at the trial, beginning with a July meeting at the El Rancho Hotel; the June conversations described by Jackson were not taped.

Jackson, 50, and former Sen. Paul Carpenter, 65, are accused of participating in an elaborate bribery and money laundering scheme with Robbins, who headed the insurance committee for a decade.

They are accused of illicitly funneling $78,500 from Jackson through Carpenter’s campaign committee to a public relations company owned by Jennifer Goddard, Robbins’ former girlfriend.

Goddard testified her company never performed any services for the money, and that she and Robbins divided it between them.

Robbins said he devised the arrangement to hide the amount of money he was receiving from the insurance industry. Robbins, who resigned his seat in 1991 when he pleaded guilty to extortion and tax evasion, has cooperated with prosecutors and is serving a reduced two-year term.

Jackson also is accused of offering a $250,000 bribe to Robbins to divert workers compensation insurance legislation to Robbins’ insurance committee. Jackson and Carpenter have pleaded innocent to all wrongdoing.

Jackson said the idea for the alleged payoff came from Robbins, not Jackson.