Rosenberg Helper Apologizes for Intruding on Badham Camp

Thomas A. Fuentes, Orange County Republican chairman, dubbed the incident “Rosengate.”

On Friday evening, Rep. Robert E. Badham’s campaign workers were holding a meeting with volunteers at their Newport Beach headquarters when they discovered a “spy” in their midst.

The young man, who allegedly was behaving “strangely” and hovering near campaign files, gave a false name and a “home phone number” that rang through to the Daily Pilot newspaper’s computer room, and he claimed--falsely--that he was working for an Orange County Register reporter, Badham campaign consultant David Vaporean said.

Eventually, he admitted that his real name was Joe Trgo and that he worked for Badham’s opponent in the June 3 Republican primary, management consultant Nathan Rosenberg. When Newport Beach police were called, Trgo left.

By Saturday, both the Rosenberg and Badham camps were trying to sort out what had happened and why. And Trgo, in a weekend telephone interview, said that “I did this on my own.”

Trgo said he was now very “embarrassed” by his actions, believed “it was a very unethical thing to do” and had written Badham a letter of apology.

Certainly it was an example of “campaign mischief,” Vaporean said.

But prank or no, Badham was treating it seriously. Before a Saturday morning candidates’ forum in Mission Viejo began, Badham accused the Rosenberg campaign of having sent a “plant” to seek information on his strategy and generally infiltrate the campaign.

“There are things that are improper; there are things that are dumb, and there are things that are immoral. This was improper, dumb and immoral,” the congressman said. He added that he was going to lodge a complaint with the Republican Party’s campaign ethics committee about the Rosenberg campaign for this and for other alleged breaches of conduct.

Meanwhile, Rosenberg and his campaign manager and brother, Harry Rosenberg, were adamant that they were in no way behind Trgo’s actions. Nathan Rosenberg said that Trgo, a campaign volunteer, who was also paid for some work, had put up several hundred “Rosenberg for Congress” campaign signs and was angry when many of those were taken in recent weeks.

‘We Did Not Send Him’

“Joe got upset. He’s a young guy and impetuous,” Rosenberg said. “But I want to make it real clear. We did not send him.”

That, too, was Trgo’s account. The Rosenberg volunteer declined to say where he lived, how old he was or precisely what he did for a living other than that he was an unemployed “businessman” who had done work for Nathan Rosenberg’s campaign at least since April.

Trgo said he was frustrated about the yard signs. “I was told that somebody from Mr. Badham’s office was taking the signs down. . . . I was putting signs out and people kept coming up to me and saying, ‘Joe, how come you’re taking down those great signs.’ And the signs were gone.”

So, entirely on his own initiative, Trgo said, he decided to attend the Badham campaign’s Friday night “work party” to try to find the culprit.

Badham consultant Vaporean asked all volunteers to sign in. So Trgo did, but with a false name, home address and home number. Trgo said he “made the address up out of the sky” and gave the name Bryan Mendoza. Mendoza was “my brother’s name,” he said, although he would not explain the difference in names.

Two Signs Accounted For

After signing in, Trgo said he began “folding signs” with other volunteers and at one point heard another Badham volunteer allegedly boast about stealing Rosenberg’s campaign signs, saying, “we took care of Rosenberg’s signs a couple of weeks ago.” (Vaporean said later that one Badham volunteer on Saturday admitted that he stole two of Rosenberg’s signs but never took any more than that.)

Trgo said he also looked at Badham’s precinct map and thumbed through a brochure on Badham, but “I didn’t look at the files.”

Trgo said that all of a sudden he was called in to see Vaporean. After discovering that Trgo had used a false name, Trgo said, Vaporean demanded to know “who sent you here.” Trgo said he replied, “I came on my own.” And when Vaporean threatened to have him arrested, Trgo said he simply walked out of the Newport Center office, and “I walked down to the ocean.”

He then walked south along the ocean toward the Rosenberg-for-Congress headquarters in Corona del Mar where he got a ride home, Trgo said. He said he did not speak to Rosenberg campaign manager Harry Rosenberg about the incident until Saturday morning when he promised to write a letter of apology to Badham. Although Harry Rosenberg said Saturday that Trgo had been “fired” for his actions, Trgo said that he knew nothing about being dismissed.

Alleged Questions

Vaporean’s account of the “spying” differed from Trgo’s in several details. Vaporean said that Trgo was doing considerably more than looking at a brochure and folding signs, but rather “was asking about precinct walking and where we were working and what was our schedule.”

Vaporean said he repeatedly asked Trgo, “ ‘Were you sent here?’ And. . . . He said, ‘I am working for Nathan Rosenberg as a volunteer in his campaign office.’ ”

Vaporean said that after Trgo fled the office, Badham volunteers who followed him saw Trgo get into a waiting car and then saw him later in the parking lot behind the Rosenberg-for-Congress headquarters, meeting with four or five people.

Vaporean criticized “the clandestine way he (Trgo) came in. Had he used his real name, we would have caught him, and thanked him and sent him home. But I don’t think it was just purely an accident. My view is that he had a number of different prepared stories to pass out in the event he got caught. We asked him to produce identification, and he didn’t have anything on him. He obviously came in to do some damage to the campaign.”