Appointed Orange County sheriff faces 2 challengers in bid to retain office

More than two years after Orange County’s top lawman was indicted on corruption charges, voters will finally decide who should run the state’s second-largest sheriff’s department.

After Michael S. Carona’s arrest and resignation, county supervisors deliberately reached outside the department to name a successor.

Sandra Hutchens, who had spent decades with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, was embraced as an “agent of change,” a fresh face to lead a department that had endured years of upheaval.

Now that past is being resurrected as Hutchens faces her first election, challenged by two law enforcement veterans who say the appointed sheriff has been a poor fit for Orange County.

The department of 3,600 employees is facing a projected budget shortfall of $65 million and a lingering stain from the corruption scandal, which resulted in Carona’s conviction for witness tampering, the jailing of his top assistant and a guilty plea for tax fraud from a second assistant.

If none of the candidates earns a majority of the votes, there will be a November runoff between the top vote-getters.

Hutchens has the advantage that comes with being an incumbent and a long list of endorsements. But as her opponents and detractors point out, she was appointed on a 3-2 supervisorial vote, not elected.

This year, Hutchens hopes to be chosen by the voters.

“I do believe that will be the electoral mandate that you need to have to be fully effective,” she said. “It is important to be elected, be the people’s choice.”

But she added that both her opponents — former sheriff’s Lt. Bill Hunt and Anaheim Deputy Police Chief Craig Hunter — also applied for the sheriff’s appointment and were rejected.

Hutchens, who has raised more than $520,000 for her campaign, has been endorsed by the California Peace Officers Assn. and the Assn. of Orange County Deputy District Attorneys, and sheriff’s departments throughout the state. She also has been endorsed by local legislators, along with county Supervisor Bill Campbell, but not by the three supervisors who voted for her appointment.

The sheriff’s critics have complained that after almost 30 years with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Hutchens does not have either the style or sensibilities for a more conservative county.

One of Hunt’s more visible endorsements comes from Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County who is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation regarding possible abuse of power and who has been in the spotlight with the passing of his state’s illegal immigrants bill. Hunt has made immigration a campaign issue and said he supports the Arizona law.

Hunt spent 21 years in the Orange County department before he retired rather than accept a demotion back to patrol after running against Carona in 2006. He later added his name to the list of potential appointees, but was passed over.

“I had nearly 100,000 people support me in 2006,” he said. “I’m the only one who people have actually voted for.”

At times it appears Hunt is still running against Carona, Hutchens said, and that he became somewhat of a political martyr.

“I would hardly say he was the people’s choice,” Hutchens said. “This isn’t about who went up against Carona, this isn’t about the past.”

Hunt, a private investigator, has been endorsed by the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, an endorsement he also had in 2006.

Hunt bills himself as the race’s conservative and has endorsements from “tea party” as well as pro-gun groups, earned in part by criticizing Hutchens’ stance on concealed weapons permits.

Soon after she was appointed, Hutchens said people seeking the permits — and even those who already had them — would need to prove why they were needed, which angered pro-gun organizations, including the National Rifle Assn. Carona had been accused of handing out the permits as political favors.

But Hunt, who has raised about $173,000, recently lost endorsements from the Santa Ana Police Officers Assn. and La Habra Police Assn. because of his work as a private investigator on behalf of an accused gang member charged with armed robbery, a move he said made the associations look “disingenuous.”

“I’m a private investigator because I was run out of the Sheriff’s Department by a corrupt sheriff,” he said.

Sgt. Joe Perez, president of the Santa Ana association, said although his group’s members understand that Hunt needs to make a living, it is a conflict of interest when he’s helping the defense cross-examine a Santa Ana police officer during a preliminary hearing.

“He was actually seated at the defense table with the suspect and he’s running for sheriff and here he is possibly defending what we refer to as street terrorists,” Perez said.

As the only candidate with no connection to the Sheriff’s Department, Hunter needs to prove he can lead the department and oversee the county’s jail system. He is second in charge in Anaheim.

He dismisses insinuations that his experience hasn’t prepared him for the job, pointing out that he runs the daily operations of a department of 800 and a 200-inmate jail in Anaheim.

Hunter, who has raised about $157,000, has spent 29 years with the Anaheim police, four of those as deputy chief.

He said he wants to implement policing policies at the Sheriff’s Department like those in Anaheim, which is ranked as one of America’s safest cities for its size, according to U.S. Justice Department statistics.

“Anaheim does it better,” he said. “The job of the sheriff is to move forward the profession of policing, and that’s not happening. That’s why they’re 10 to 15 years behind.”

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com