Ortiz’s Friend Says Investigator Misrepresented Her Remarks

A key figure in the investigation of county Registrar Ray Ortiz said Wednesday that a district attorney’s investigator misrepresented her remarks to him in court papers released Tuesday.

Maria Caldera, a longtime friend of Ortiz who is suspected of receiving payments that were allegedly improperly billed to San Diego County, also said she signed a check over to Ortiz in 1984 because she owed him money and did not have a checking account of her own at the time.

In an affidavit filed in support of search warrants in the investigation, investigator Carlos Rebelez wrote that Caldera had said Ortiz told her to sign an invoice reporting that she had done quality control work on sample ballots printed for the county by Jeffries Banknote Co. The firm, the affidavit said, was then to have billed the county for the money paid Caldera, even though she never did the work.

“She stated she knew the information on the invoice was a lie, but that she was told by Ortiz to sign the invoice,” Rebelez wrote.

But Caldera, in an interview at her condominium here Wednesday, said she never knowingly sign a false invoice and that she did not sign the invoice at Ortiz’s direction.

“Maybe he (Rebelez) misinterpreted what I said, or misunderstood me,” Caldera said.

Caldera said that, at the time she signed the disputed invoice, she believed she was going to be doing the work described on the document. Only later, Caldera said, did she learn that the money was to pay her for acting as Jeffries’ representative at a Mission Valley conference hosted by Ortiz.

“I signed the invoice because I was going to be doing the work,” Caldera said. “I thought they were going to be doing some sample balloting.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Douglas Gregg said he believed Rebelez’s account of his interview with Caldera was accurate.

“She’s more than welcome to come back in and speak to Mr. Rebelez and correct whatever previous statement she made,” Gregg said. “If she feels she has said something in the past she feels needs to be corrected or wants to unring the bell, fine. She has not come forward to us that I’m aware of to want to change the record.”

Caldera--at times angry, at times in tears--told The Times that she felt partly to blame for Ortiz’s predicament because some of the allegations against him involve payments made to her by Jeffries Banknote in 1984 and 1986.

Caldera, 51, said she has known Ortiz “since we were babies.” As a teen-ager in Sanger, Calif., Ortiz worked for Caldera’s father, loading grapes into crates. When Caldera moved to San Diego from San Francisco in 1983, she said, Ortiz offered her a temporary job with the registrar’s office to help her establish herself in town.

“He’s helped my family and I’ve helped his family,” she said. “There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. That’s the way we grew up.

“If Ortiz did something bad, it was he helped his friends. If that is bad, then who are we? What are we all about? You’re supposed to help your friends.”

Caldera said Ortiz and his wife lent her about $800 in early 1984 and co-signed for her on an account with the telephone company. She said Ortiz then helped her obtain a quality control job with Jeffries Banknote, for which she was paid $4,425 in 1984. Part of that payment, a check for $1,275, Caldera signed over to Ortiz to repay the money he had lent her.

Caldera said she remembered signing the check and then, after Ortiz had signed it, taking it on her lunch hour to the county employees credit union and depositing the money in Ortiz’s account.

She said she saw nothing wrong with the transaction. She said she was paid for work she performed and that she made good on a legitimate debt to Ortiz. According to the affidavit, a Jeffries vice president told the district attorney’s investigator that he and Ortiz worked together to conceal the payments to Caldera, allowing Jeffries to recoup its money without county officials knowing that they had paid for Caldera’s work.

Caldera said she did not work for the county or Jeffries in 1985, but that Ortiz called her earlier this year with word that Jeffries needed her again. That call led to her receiving the $4,000 check from Jeffries in July. She said she took $1,500 of the money for herself as payment for her work at the registrar’s conference and spent $1,800 or so on gifts for the conference attendees. The rest, she said, she plans to return to Jeffries.

Caldera said that, other than the loan repayment, she has never given Ortiz money she received from Jeffries. She predicted that Ortiz will ultimately be cleared, and that county officials will be sorry in the long run.

“The county is going to suffer without Ortiz,” she said. “They’re going to suffer without his commitment and his work. They will understand what Ortiz did for this county.”