Carona’s troubles may affect civil suits

Long before former Sheriff Michael S. Carona was charged with political corruption, Orange County risk managers had their hands full with lawsuits from some of his top deputies and others accusing him of abusing the power of his office and scandalizing the department.

Several of the lawsuits, in fact, parallel the accusations in the sweeping criminal indictment, which ended Carona’s career. And although that might not spell certain doom for lawyers defending the Sheriff’s Department, it could motivate the county to settle the cases out of court, civil litigation experts say.

“It can’t help the Sheriff Department’s defense to have that kind of publicity getting out there,” said Browne Greene, a Santa Monica civil litigator who is not involved in any of the suits. “The plaintiffs are victims. They’re whistle-blowers. And they paid for it before it became recognized by the feds.”

With the exception of one case, the lawsuits were filed by men whom Carona placed in positions of high trust and later dismissed, demoted or reassigned. The plaintiffs include George Jaramillo, an assistant sheriff once seen as Carona’s top confidant and likely successor; and former Lt. Bill Hunt, chief of police services in San Clemente and top challenger to Carona in the 2006 election.

Another lawsuit was filed by two men who were confronted on a golf course by a gun-waving, badge-flashing man later identified as Raymond Yi, Carona’s personal martial arts instructor and a member of his problem-plagued reserve deputy program.

Lawyers representing some of the plaintiffs agree that their lawsuits are winnable even if Carona hadn’t been charged with felonies in November, accused with misusing his office to enrich himself and others, including his wife and longtime mistress. Given that the allegations in the indictment mirror several in the lawsuits, a conviction can only help, they say.

In Hunt’s case, for example, he built his 2006 campaign against the sheriff around the scandals dogging Carona and the Sheriff’s Department as an election theme. The day after Carona was reelected, he suspended Hunt for making campaign statements he saw as a violation of department rules. Five months later, Hunt retired instead of accepting a demotion.

“Much of what Bill was saying during the campaign was questioning Carona’s integrity,” said Hunt’s attorney, Stephen H. Silver. “One of the conclusions jurors might reach is: Hunt was prophetic.”

Orange County officials would not discuss the potential effect Carona’s prosecution could have on the pending lawsuits. And it is unclear whether juries in the civil cases could even be told of the criminal case against Carona. Most likely the judge in each case would rule on whether attorneys could bring up the former sheriff’s criminal case.

UCLA law professor Stephen C. Yeazell said it was unlikely that a conviction would gravely impact the county’s defense in the civil lawsuits. The cases will probably be won or lost on their merits, he said.

“The question for the jury will be: Did the information available to Sheriff Carona at that time give him appropriate grounds for dismissing or demoting those officers? Even if he’s reading about these trials from jail, someone could say, ‘Hey, he’s a crook. But he had reasonable grounds to take these disciplinary actions,’ ” Yeazell said.

That said, county lawyers may have a difficult time finding a jury that had not heard about Carona’s indictment, Yeazell said.

“That’s going to be an odd jury -- either people who have arrived in Orange County in the last 40 minutes or a jury that is astoundingly uninformed, and you may not want that jury for other reasons,” he said.

If Carona is convicted, the surrounding publicity could serve as incentive for county lawyers to seek to settle the lawsuits, legal experts predicted.

Carona’s indictment has had one tangible effect on the lawsuits: delay. Carona’s deposition has been postponed in some of the cases because of the pending criminal case. Hunt has not yet tried to take his deposition.

If Carona were forced to testify in the civil cases, he would probably exercise his 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination, making the depositions meaningless. Even though several of the cases are scheduled for trial this year, it’s likely that none of them will move forward until after Carona’s criminal case is concluded.

One twist is that Carona’s criminal case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford, who already was handling Hunt’s lawsuit. Hunt’s attorney said he had no problem with the judge hearing both cases.

christine.hanley@latimes.com

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

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The lawsuit lineup

Lawsuits filed against former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona and the county of Orange:

George Jaramillo

Once one of Carona’s closest friends and confidants, Jaramillo served as Carona’s top assistant sheriff until he was fired in 2004. He filed suit a year later, alleging that he was improperly fired because he had criticized the sheriff’s policy and questioned whether it violated state and federal laws. Jaramillo was convicted in 2007 of lying to a grand jury and misusing a department helicopter and was sentenced to a year in jail. He later reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors on tax charges and is expected to be a key witness in Carona’s upcoming criminal trial. The trial on his lawsuit is scheduled for July 14 in Orange County Superior Court.

Bill Hunt

A former sheriff’s lieutenant, Hunt waged a fierce but unsuccessful bid to unseat Carona in 2006 in a campaign that made an issue of the scandals surrounding the department. The day after he lost the election, Carona placed him on administrative leave pending an investigation that later found his campaign statements to have been disloyal, divisive and violated department policy. He chose to resign and file a federal lawsuit, alleging that the demotion was retaliatory and violated his 1st Amendment rights. The case is scheduled for trial Sept. 16 before the same judge handling Carona’s criminal trial.

Jeff Bardzik

A 23-year member of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Bardzik was chosen by Carona to clean up the department’s problem-plagued reserve deputy program, which included many of the sheriff’s political supporters. His lawsuit alleges that he was improperly transferred to court operations and denied promotion because he supported Hunt and pushed to change Carona’s decision to allow reserve deputies to carry badges. The trial is set to begin June 10 at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.

Darrell Poncy

A 27-year veteran and former commander of the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy, Poncy continued teaching at the academy after retiring in 2004. His lawsuit alleges that he was fired as an instructor because he campaigned for Hunt and challenged Carona’s ethics and practice of issuing badges and guns to political allies. The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, seeks his reinstatement and financial damages.

Marcelo Bautista and Gustavo Resendiz

Bautista, and Resendiz, his uncle, sued in 2006, alleging that a man Carona named as a reserve deputy flashed his badge and threatened to kill them during a dispute on a golf course. The reserve, Raymond Yi, was Carona’s personal martial arts instructor and one of several hundred reserve deputies whom Carona appointed. The case is scheduled for trial April 15 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. Yi’s criminal case is pending.

Compiled by Christine Hanley