EDITORIAL ANOTHER LINK IN CHAIN LAUNDERING CHARGES ARE ONE MORE CASE OF CITY HALL CORRUPTION.

LOS Angeles attorney Pierce O'Donnell wasn't wrong to think that, were he ever caught laundering money for Los Angeles politicians, he would probably just get a strongly worded reprimand and a fine.

That's the way things generally work in politics - not just in Los Angeles, but most everywhere.

Knock over a gas station and go to jail for a long time. Knock over a city's political system and become a power broker. And if authorities do decide to mete out some form of punishment, those playing the game expect to get about the same treatment as jaywalkers.

In L.A., that usually means a slap on the wrist from the impotent city Ethics Commission.

O'Donnell, a trial lawyer, and seven of his staff members and friends are being charged with laundering campaign contributions to Mayor James Hahn's 2001 campaign. Here's how authorities claim the racket worked: Since there's a $1,000 per person limit on how much one person can give to a citywide political campaign, O'Donnell had his friends and employees donate money. Then he paid them back. That's a crime.

According to his lawyer, O'Donnell is disappointed that the District Attorney's Office decided to seek criminal charges and not administrative remedies.

For sure. O'Donnell was likely under the impression that this type of law-bending happens all the time. It almost certainly does, and it has warped L.A.'s political system so badly that politicians and inside players easily forget that the laws still apply to them.

The O'Donnell case is yet another link in a growing chain of evidence that policies and contracts are regularly sold to the highest bidder at City Hall. Federal and county officials are looking into allegations that contractors have had to give political donations in order to win city contracts. And late last year, another political player, real estate mogul Alan Casden, saw one of his top executives and 13 of his firm's subcontractors indicted on felony charges of violating campaign-finance laws.

And all of the paths of dirty money lead to Mayor James Hahn.

In response to the accusations against O'Donnell, Hahn says he presumed that the lawyer was following the law, and that could well be true. But Hahn is no political novice. He has been a Los Angeles elected official for more than two decades, following in the footsteps of his career-politician dad, Kenneth Hahn. He knows how the game is played.

Still, he deserves some credit, we suppose, for instigating some of the strictest ethics reforms governing contractors who make contributions to city campaigns. Of course, that was only after ginning the corrupt system for all it's worth.

It's also in no small part a self-serving attempt to salvage his reputation from the ever-mounting scandal that threatens to doom his political career.

Like O'Donnell, Hahn may also soon learn that, every once in a while, even the powerful are forced to play by the rules - and accept the consequences of their actions.