Dial-a-Porn Calls From County Offices Tied to Nestande Aide

A 23-year-old student intern working in Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande’s office was the caller who dialed sexually explicit tape recordings from Nestande’s phones more than 100 times between 1985 and last June, county officials disclosed Tuesday.

In a report presented Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors, Larry Parrish, the county administrative officer, said John Stoffel had resigned from his $7.90 per hour job as a student intern. He also paid $236.49 in restitution for the so-called “dial-a-porn” calls, each of which cost $2 plus a telephone company connection charge ranging from 22 cents to 78 cents.

Parrish said that as of last week, such phone calls were being blocked by new filtering capabilities added to the county’s Centrex telephone system.

Most of the calls from Nestande’s phones were made late at night or on weekends and holidays. Some, however, were made during business hours and a few were made from other supervisors’ offices.

Stoffel, a student at California State University, Fullerton, was a Republican political activist when he became an intern in Nestande’s office in 1984. Last year, Nestande also appointed him to the county Fair Campaign Practices Commission.

Nestande, Republican candidate for secretary of state, was embarrassed politically when the calls on his telephone bills, which are public record, were revealed in August. At the time, Nestande strongly denied making the calls and requested an investigation.

Nestande said in a written statement: “This entire situation was unfortunate--for the young man involved, his fellow workers, and the county as a whole. The issue is now a closed matter.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Maurice Evans said he declined to prosecute Stoffel for misuse of public property because Stoffel had made restitution, had no prior criminal record and “he’s been punished enough.”

Parrish said Tuesday that the new filtering capability added to the county’s phone system blocks calls to the 976 prefix. The prefix is reserved by the telephone company for taped messages.