Jaramillo begins his jail sentence
Disgraced lawman George Jaramillo checked into the Montebello City Jail over the weekend to serve a one-year sentence for corruption.
The former Orange County assistant sheriff was booked Saturday. Officials at the district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Jaramillo, declined to comment. Under an agreement with prosecutors, Jaramillo was allowed to choose a pay-to-stay jail in which to serve his sentence.
He had until April 27 to report to a jail after pleading no contest in January to lying to a grand jury and unauthorized use of a county helicopter.
The Montebello jail is run under contract by Correctional Systems Inc., an Orange County firm that runs some other city jails. Company spokeswoman Christine Parker did not return calls Monday. Last month, she said it would cost Jaramillo a one-time $100 processing fee and $75 per day while he was locked up. If his sentence is reduced 120 days for good behavior, as agreed to by prosecutors, Jaramillo’s jail stay will cost him about $18,000.
Rent payments are due the first of the month.
Jaramillo’s plans to do his time at the Fullerton City Jail, another pay-to-stay facility, unraveled last month when prosecutors objected after learning he would be allowed to bring his cellphone and laptop computer.
Once the second-ranked official in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Jaramillo was widely viewed as Sheriff Michael S. Carona’s heir apparent. Jaramillo helped Carona get elected, and the sheriff broke with tradition by naming him assistant sheriff rather than promoting someone from inside the department. He had left the Garden Grove Police Department as a lieutenant and was working as an attorney at the time.
But the two parted ways in March 2003, when Carona fired Jaramillo because of his business relationship with a company that was marketing an electronic device that could be used to disable vehicles chased by police. Jaramillo’s ties to the company opened an investigation that led to his corruption conviction.
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