Official Tied to Alleged Con Money

A Hollywood producer paid Rep. Dana Rohrabacher $23,000 for a screenplay option using money laundered in a con to promote a bogus television series, according to a grand jury indictment released Friday.

The 34-count document also alleges that producer Joseph Medawar took $7,000 from the fraud to help buy an SUV for a prominent state GOP official, Orange County businessman Mario Rodriguez.

The allegations surfaced the same day that the FBI arrested Medawar’s longtime associate, Alison Ann Heruth, in Minnesota on charges that she participated in the scheme to bilk more than 70 investors out of at least $5.5 million. The investors, including many local churchgoers, were told the money was going to a new television series based on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, authorities say.

Instead, the indictment says, Medawar used the money to promote a lavish lifestyle for himself and Heruth, who was touted as the TV show’s female star.

Medawar, 43, was first arrested and charged in September in a criminal complaint in the same alleged scam.

Records and interviews show that Rohrabacher was instrumental in helping Medawar promote the show because the Huntington Beach congressman thought it would bring positive attention to the Department of Homeland Security.

At the time of fundraising for the show, Medawar and Heruth had meetings with top GOP officials to discuss the show and touted that access to entice dozens of investors. The meetings included one 2004 gathering in Washington, D.C., with Rohrabacher and at least five other Republican congressmen and staff members from the House Homeland Security Committee.

“As the indictment alleges, Medawar used fraudulently obtained investor funds to buy access to government officials and others in an effort to promote this scheme,” Assistant U.S. Atty. David Willingham said after the latest indictment.

On Friday, Rohrabacher said he still thought Medawar’s idea for a television series had merit and he reserved judgment on the new charges facing the producer. “He is either a fraud or an incompetent producer, and Hollywood is filled with incompetent producers,” Rohrabacher said.

The congressman also denied that Medawar gained special access to government personnel by purchasing his 30-year-old script.

“No way did he buy access. I have helped out dozens of people who have ideas for films,” he said. “Look, if I felt there was any question about this, if I had felt this was a fraud, I wouldn’t have come within 10 miles of this guy. But he had a good idea. He had done films in the past. He seemed to have some credentials.”

Rohrabacher also said he would not decide whether to return the $23,000 to Medawar until a jury determined whether the alleged swindler was guilty of fraud.

Rodriguez said Medawar offered to get him a sport utility vehicle because he was on the board of the television series, requiring him to drive back and forth between Orange County and Los Angeles.

He made a trade-in to cover the down payment and Medawar took care of the monthly payments, he said.

Rodriguez said that he had the vehicle only about six months and that, after the FBI interviewed him, he took steps to take full ownership of it. In the meantime, his daughter wrecked the SUV in an accident.

Rodriguez said that Medawar also bought him a television because “they were going to eventually do some type of videoconferencing,” but that he never used it and it is now in storage.

Asked if he would reimburse investors for the SUV and TV, Rodriguez said “absolutely.”

“I would be happy to pay whoever,” he said. “As far as everybody was concerned, he was doing everything legit.... I feel like an idiot.”

Heruth could not be reached for comment. Medawar’s attorney, Jeff Rutherford, said he was not surprised by the latest charges. “The superseding indictment ... is based upon old information, adds little, if anything to the government’s charges against Joseph Medawar, and doesn’t change how we feel about the case,” Rutherford said.

The indictment alleges that Medawar laundered some of the ill-gotten money by wiring $23,000 to Rohrabacher’s bank account Dec. 23, 2003, for an option to produce “Baja,” a screenplay that Rohrabacher wrote 30 years ago about an archeological expedition to Mexico by a military veteran and a liberal graduate student.

Medawar also funneled $10,000 in fraudulent investor funds to Desert Bloom Ministries, a multicultural, nondenominational church based in Whittier and led by Pastor Al Forniss, according to the new charges. Forniss could not be reached for comment Friday.