Ex-aide testifies in Carona corruption trial about reimbursements

The longtime executive assistant for former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona testified Tuesday that although her boss reimbursed individuals for meals as cheap as $5 and meticulously reported gifts he received, he never disclosed the thousands of dollars or gifts he is accused of accepting from a Newport Beach millionaire.

Elaine Vasquez, who worked for Carona for about seven years, was one of six witnesses who took the stand as prosecutors picked up the pace of the corruption trial and covered topics that included the somewhat technical legal reporting requirements underlying wire and mail fraud charges, as well as some of the lingering mysteries about who was calling the shots the night that the son of Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl was caught in a pot bust.

The brisk rate of testimony was a marked departure from 10 straight days of questioning the government’s key witness, Haidl, a Newport Beach millionaire and businessman who told jurors that he laundered at least $30,000 into Carona’s first campaign in 1998, bribed him with $1,000 monthly cash payments, paid for vacations and tailored suits, gave him a boat, and allowed him unlimited use of his private yacht and planes.

Carona and his former mistress, Debra Hoffman, are on trial on federal charges that they misused the power of the sheriff’s office in a conspiracy to enrich themselves and others with cash and gifts worth more than $700,000, much of it coming from Haidl.

In questioning Vasquez, Senior Assistant U.S. Atty. Kenneth Julian seemed to be trying to show jurors that Carona was aware of his obligations to disclose any cash and gifts he received as sheriff and as a member of the California Commission on Criminal Justice, yet at the same time chose to hide the lucre he allegedly received from Haidl.

Vasquez, who left the Sheriff’s Department midway through 2006, testified that she wrote letters to various people Carona reimbursed, letting them know that it was inappropriate for him to accept freebies. She confirmed examples that included a $5 check for lunch with an Orange County Register publisher, $200 for the cost of a limousine that ferried his family to see “The Lion King,” and hundreds of dollars for a suit from an L.A. outfitter.

Julian asked Vasquez whether Carona told her Haidl was paying him a monthly allowance of $1,000, had given him suits and shirts worth more than $1,300 and let him take Hoffman to Vegas in his plane. Vasquez said Carona never disclosed such payments and she was unaware of any.

In other testimony Tuesday, two sheriff’s deputies testified that Haidl’s son, Greg, received favorable treatment on the night that he and two friends were caught with a small amount of marijuana while skateboarding in San Clemente. At the time, Greg Haidl was free on bail while awaiting trial in a gang rape case.

Sgt. John Roche, a veteran narcotics investigator, testified that he was on patrol when he came upon the younger Haidl skateboarding with two friends in an industrial park. He said Haidl told him he was free on bail and had not smoked marijuana in more than a year.

Roche testified that he suspected that the marijuana found was Haidl’s because his other possessions, including his cigarettes and keys, were in the same pile on the back floorboard under the seat where Haidl had been sitting. Haidl denied that it belonged to him, Roche said.

A citation could have resulted in the revocation of Haidl’s bail in the rape case. Roche said he wanted to cite Haidl for possession, but a supervising sergeant ordered him not to, and instructed him to drive Haidl home. Roche said that the next day, Lt. Bill Hunt asked him to write a report about the incident, but then asked him to sanitize it and make it appear that the marijuana belonged to one of Haidl’s friends.

“He said what I had written was not what he was looking for,” Roche said.

Lt. Lloyd Downing, the watch commander that night, testified that he called Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo that evening and that Jaramillo told him to keep the incident off his log so the media wouldn’t learn of it. Downing said it wasn’t something he would usually log because he routinely left off minor incidents involving department members or their relatives. However, Downing added that he told Roche’s supervising sergeant to keep it off his own log, which he believed resulted in favorable treatment for Greg Haidl.

Under cross-examination, both Downing and Roche said that as far as they knew, Carona was not involved in the decisions made that evening. Previous testimony and phone records show that Jaramillo called Carona that night.

Hanley is a Times staff writer.

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