Making a bid to boost his status

Near the gravel pits and scrap yards of east Los Angeles County, Donald Haidl made his fortune auctioning road-weary cars and trucks from lease fleets and government motor pools.

The sales paid for homes in Newport Beach and Las Vegas, a private plane and a yacht named Quickhammer, after its bid-calling owner.

Even Haidl’s office in the City of Industry, a stucco box overlooking cracked asphalt and barbed wire, had expensive touches, including a Jacuzzi and private dressing room. It also housed a safe for the money that rolled in.

But Haidl wanted something more. A high school dropout, he spent years as a non-sworn volunteer for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. That whetted his appetite for the status and clout a big-time sheriff enjoyed, especially one who offered the promise of a wide-open political future, people close to Haidl say.

And so, according to federal prosecutors and others, Haidl bought those things too.

“He wanted a badge so he wouldn’t have to play by the rules like everybody else,” said a former associate from the auction business, who, like others close to Haidl, spoke on condition of anonymity. “Don wanted power.”

Today, Haidl, 56, has confessed to a federal tax crime and is a chief witness against the man whose career he helped bankroll, indicted Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona.

Carona is accused by federal prosecutors of peddling access to his office for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts. He has denied the charges.

Haidl sits near the center of the indictment, involved in many of the events that have derailed the sheriff’s political career.

Among the favors he received from Carona was a 1999 appointment as assistant sheriff. He made no secret to those around him that he expected even greater rewards from backing the sheriff, who Haidl believed was bound for higher office.

When Carona shot to national recognition for his televised handling of the hunt for the kidnapper and killer of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, Republican strategists figured his next stop could be the lieutenant governorship. Haidl fantasized that he could help make Carona president someday, people who know the men say.

In the meantime, the assistant sheriff’s job seemed a dream come true. Haidl was now a real lawman, a member of Carona’s command staff.

He headed the Orange County department’s reserve corps and quickly enlisted many friends, relatives and auction house employees into the program. They were issued badges and sometimes guns.

The associate recalled the day that Haidl arrived at the office of his firm, Nationwide Auction Systems, driving a county-issued Crown Victoria -- cop wheels -- and wearing his assistant sheriff’s uniform there for the first time: Haidl had never appeared prouder, especially as he showed off the green outfit fitted to his tall, thin frame.

“Don was standing there, and all the buttons and brass were shined up,” the associate recounted. “He said, ‘I had it custom-made.’ ”

“He was up here now,” the associate said, lifting a hand above his head. “He was a different person.”

In the months that followed, the associate and others say, Carona and another assistant sheriff, George Jaramillo, who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges, would visit Haidl at Nationwide, where they huddled behind closed doors.

The three also would party on Quickhammer in Newport Harbor, the associate said. Haidl did not shortchange his vices, friends and former colleagues say: He chain-smoked, took jaunts to Las Vegas and rarely wanted for female companionship between his two marriages.

On other occasions, the associate related, Haidl would boast of his hold over the sheriff, saying: “He plays ball. He’s in our pocket. . . . We’re on Easy Street.”

The indictment puts it another way. It alleges that Haidl used Carona as a “Get out of jail free” card.

When Haidl needed help for his son, who was charged in 2002 in a gang sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl, Carona and Jaramillo obliged by trying to intervene in the investigation, according to the indictment. Similarly, Gregory Haidl received preferential treatment in a marijuana case, prosecutors say.

The son’s travails marked the beginning of the father’s downfall. In 2004, the elder Haidl gave up the assistant sheriff’s post he cherished, convinced that his position actually had subjected his son to tougher treatment by publicity-minded prosecutors and the news media. In the end; his son was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to six years in prison.

“Donny did everything he could for him,” said Susan Yasgar, a Cal State Fullerton English professor who has been a Haidl friend for 20 years. She said he was “devastated” by his son’s conviction.

Gregory Haidl’s arrest exposed cracks in his father’s relationship with Carona. Their bond already had taken a hit when bribery allegations were leveled against Jaramillo, and rumors of the sheriff’s extramarital affairs intensified, Haidl’s associate said.

“The trouble with his son made everything else surface,” said a former employee of Haidl’s business, who asked not to be named because he feared being drawn into the continuing investigation of Carona.

Although still friendly with Carona, Haidl had begun to question the sheriff’s judgment, was turned off by a growing arrogance in his manner, and felt things were unraveling, the associate and others say.

“There were the ‘Three Amigos,’ ” the associate said. “Now Don was saying, ‘Carona’s an idiot, and Jaramillo is going to screw everything up.’ ”

Haidl declined to comment for this story, as did his attorneys. He has pleaded guilty to filing a false income tax return in a scheme that tapped several of his corporate entities to pay the legal bills racked up by his son and his son’s two co-defendants.

Don Haidl faces as much as three years in prison, but prosecutors have said they would recommend leniency if he continues to cooperate in the Carona investigation and testifies truthfully.

He has admitted to prosecutors that he made regular payments to Carona and the sheriff’s then-mistress, attorney Debra Hoffman. The indictment also alleges that Haidl gave Carona’s wife, Deborah Carona, a $1,500 St. John suit.

Deborah Carona is charged with a single conspiracy count, and Hoffman is accused of conspiracy, mail fraud and bankruptcy fraud. They maintain their innocence.

Prosecutors say Haidl wore a wire in a meeting with Carona in August, recording the sheriff allegedly urging him to mislead a grand jury.

Both the associate and the former employee said they were shocked that Haidl turned on Carona and did not fight the charges against him. It was not the Haidl they knew.

“He always thought he couldn’t get caught, that he was untouchable,” the former employee said. Friends invariably describe Haidl as generous and caring, and so down to earth that no one would know he was rich. They noted that he raised money for charities such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and helped bring a sick Salvadoran girl to California for treatment.

“He’s done a lot more good than what I read in the newspapers,” said Geary Luke, who worked for Nationwide. “With people below his social status, he was the same person -- genuine.”

Haidl was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California, where his father built swimming pools. He had a passion for cars since childhood, taught himself mechanics and bodywork, and restored and sold his first set of wheels, a 1952 Pontiac, as a teenager. He dropped out of high school to wash cars for a rental company and operate a drill press.

In 1981, Haidl founded Nationwide and began to cultivate law enforcement officers in part because he auctioned autos seized in drug cases. He volunteered in the San Bernardino County sheriff’s services bureau, in which citizens help with crowd control, brush fire evacuations and other support tasks. He achieved the rank of captain among volunteers.

Haidl also was spreading around campaign contributions.

With a business that depended largely on government contracts, giving politicians money was the smart thing to do. But Haidl also took personal satisfaction in rubbing shoulders with elected officials, the associate and former employee said.

Some years ago, he hosted a fundraiser on Quickhammer for former Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn. Hahn and his sister, City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, were on board for the cruise around Newport Harbor, the associate and an aide to the councilwoman said. Haidl passed out cigars and collected campaign checks.

“He wanted to be with better and classier people,” the former employee said. “It was ego, I guess.”

In the 1998 O.C. sheriff’s campaign, Haidl decided to back Carona, then the appointed county marshal, after initially offering to raise money for a bid by Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters, the early favorite. Walters said he spurned the overture because Haidl wanted to be named to a top position.

Haidl has denied that he pursued such a deal.

Haidl sized up Carona as a charmer and natural vote-getter who also had a weakness for money and the extras it bought -- pricey restaurants, four-star hotels and front-row seats, those close to Haidl say.

Carona had no qualms about a quid pro quo, the indictment says. It alleges that he illegally accepted a series of $1,000 checks from individual campaign “contributors,” whom Haidl had actually reimbursed.

Haidl was already wealthy from Nationwide’s auctions of surplus utility trucks, construction equipment, lease cars, police cruisers and the like. He grew even richer when he sold the company in 1999 to Illinois-based Entrade Inc.

The indictment asserts that Carona illegally concealed his ownership of Entrade shares.

Nationwide had been doing up to $100 million year in auction sales, people with knowledge of the operation say. In the 1980s and ‘90s, state investigators suspected that Haidl was collecting more from the auctions than he was entitled to.

Haidl denied the accusations and was not charged with a crime, but ended up paying $104,000 to settle a civil fraud suit. Supporters of Haidl say he had his insurance company make the payment only to avoid an expensive court battle.

The case predated his ties with Carona. But it did not stop the newly elected sheriff from asking the Orange County Board of Supervisors to change the eligibility rules so that Haidl could become an assistant, despite his lack of law enforcement experience.

Afterward, Carona said background checks on Haidl had turned up no “meritorious” allegations of wrongdoing.

By then, according to the indictment, Haidl was secretly lining Carona’s pockets.

paul.pringle@latimes.com

christine.hanley@latimes.com