Ortiz, 2 Others Indicted Over False Billings by Ballot Firm

Former San Diego County registrar Ray J. Ortiz has been indicted on four counts of grand theft, seven counts of misappropriating public funds and 16 other charges in connection with false bills submitted to the county through a Los Angeles company that once printed the county’s sample election ballots.

Also named in the indictment were Maria Caldera, a longtime friend of Ortiz who was charged with three counts of grand theft, and Lance Gough, an elections consultant charged with a single grand theft count.

All the charges are felonies.

The indictment was returned by the county grand jury Wednesday and unsealed Thursday after the arrest of Caldera, who was booked into County Jail at Las Colinas and released on $10,000 bail Thursday.

Arrest warrants were also issued for Ortiz, who was reported en route to San Diego from Pennsylvania, and Gough, whose whereabouts were unknown.

Ortiz, who resigned Sept. 1 after seven years as registrar, is the third San Diego public official to be indicted in the last 26 months. Former Mayor Roger Hedgecock was convicted in 1985 of conspiring to funnel thousands of dollars into his 1983 mayoral campaign, and Councilman Uvaldo Martinez pleaded guilty Oct. 2 to misusing a city credit card.

Ortiz was not charged with any crimes in connection with more than $400,000 in county contracts obtained by an Escondido elections supply firm whose president is a close friend of Ortiz.

A district attorney’s investigator earlier this year alleged that Ortiz had illegally steered those contracts to the firm, but Deputy Dist. Atty. Douglas C. Gregg said Thursday he did not expect any additional charges to be filed against Ortiz, Caldera or Gough, or against any other individuals or firms who figured in the investigation.

Gregg would not comment further on the charges or the investigation.

Ortiz’s attorney, Merle Schneidewind, said the 52-year-old former registrar plans to surrender at 2 p.m. Monday. Schneidewind said Ortiz, who is driving to San Diego from Pennsylvania, where he was working for an election equipment manufacturer, was “disappointed” but not surprised by the indictment.

“It’s been my experience that any time a district attorney goes to a grand jury and requests an indictment, they return an indictment,” Schneidewind said. “It didn’t surprise us. . . . Ray’s feeling now is that at least he’ll get to see the evidence and tell his side of the story instead of groping in the dark.”

Schneidewind said Ortiz took heart in the fact that no charges were filed in connection with Ortiz’s handling of several contracts with Election Data Corp. of Escondido and its president, Richard Stephens.

“It’s interesting that what started all this hullabaloo--the thing with Dick Stephens and Election Data--nothing of that came out in the indictment at all,” Schneidewind said.

The 27 counts in the indictment center on six transactions between May, 1984, and July, 1986. The transactions involve an alleged loss to the county of $7,373 and a $4,000 loss to Jeffries Banknote Co. of Los Angeles, the firm that printed the county’s sample ballots from 1983 until earlier this year.

Three of the transactions involved money Ortiz allegedly directed Jeffries Banknote to pay Caldera or Gough as consultants. Ortiz allegedly told Jeffries to recover its money by billing the county extra on the printing contract. Ortiz allegedly received at least $2,900 of the money paid Caldera.

Caldera and Ortiz have been friends since their childhood in Sanger, Calif., and Caldera has said that Ortiz helped her get settled when she moved to San Diego in 1984 by employing her in odd jobs at the registrar of voters office. Gough, a computer consultant who formerly worked for the Chicago Board of Elections, has been paid $7,000 for his services to the county since 1985.

The three other transactions involved expenses Jeffries paid for trips taken by Ortiz and others to Chicago, New Orleans and Redding, Pa. These expenses were later recovered by the printing firm when a Jeffries executive submitted false bills to the county, allegedly at the direction of Ortiz.

Jeffries Vice President Lynn Kienle, who submitted the bills, received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his grand jury testimony against Ortiz and the others, according to Schneidewind and another source close to the investigation.

The firm contends that all bills that might have been inaccurate were submitted under Ortiz’s direction with the understanding that they were appropriate, said Michael Lipman, Jeffries’ attorney.

“Jeffries never knowingly mis-billed the county,” Lipman said. “With regard to any outside consultants allegedly used by Ortiz, we were told by Ortiz that these were people that did work on the election process in some manner on behalf of the county, and that in order to facilitate reimbursement we should pay an invoice that Ortiz would arrange to get us, and in turn we should bill the county on the contract.”

Lipman said a similar arrangement was made to enable Jeffries to pay for trips to New Orleans and Redding, Calif., by Ortiz, his wife and several associates.

“Jeffries relied on the representations made by Mr. Ortiz that this was all on the up and up,” Lipman said.

Schneidewind said Ortiz agrees that Jeffries paid for expenses associated with several trips taken by him, his employees and associates. But he said the firm did so willingly and was not directed by Ortiz to recover its funds by submitting false bills to the county.

“Ray has admitted all along that some of those expenses had been paid by Jeffries Banknote,” Schneidewind said. “He was proud of that, the fact that the county didn’t get stuck and private industry paid for that.”

Schneidewind said he plans to ask for a preliminary hearing for Ortiz, at which the attorney would try to prove to a judge that the charges against Ortiz are without merit and should be dismissed without a trial.

In addition to the four counts of grand theft and seven counts of misappropriating public funds, Ortiz was charged with six counts of making false entries into public accounts; five counts of altering, falsifying or concealing an account, and five counts of destroying, altering or falsifying public records.