Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : Nestande’s Resignation Not a Surprise

Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande confirmed rumors that had been circulating for months and resigned Wednesday, midway through his second four-year term.

A former GOP assemblyman and one-time aide to then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, Nestande said he would leave office Tuesday to pursue an unspecified career in the private sector.

Nestande has been under investigation by federal and local authorities in connection with the political corruption inquiry involving Anaheim fireworks manufacturer W. Patrick Moriarty. Nestande ran unsuccessfully against Secretary of State March Fong Eu last November.

The ex-Marine and former GOP state assemblyman from Orange was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1981, defeating controversial former Vietnam prisoner of war Edison W. Miller. Gov. George Deukmejian will appoint Nestande’s successor.

Nestande, 48, said he timed the announcement of his resignation to come one day after the board passed a measure he had worked on for nine months. The measure links all development in his district to the building of roads, a provision he said “translates into no new roads, no new development.”

Nestande did not mention the criminal investigations or Moriarty, who is serving a federal prison sentence on mail fraud charges related to political corruption. When asked if his resignation had anything to do with investigations of Moriarty’s dealings, Nestande responded, “no.”

Nestande said he did not know what his next job will be, only that it will be in the private sector. He said that he expected to make a decision in the next week to 10 days.

According to people interviewed by Orange County district attorney investigators and the FBI, authorities have been inquiring about Nestande’s behind-the-scenes support for R. E. Wolfe Enterprises of Orange County, a firm organized by Kansas City contractor R. E. Wolfe and Moriarty in an effort to win a contract to operate Orange County landfills.

Since state and federal officials began investigating Moriarty’s political and banking activities in 1983, Moriarty and 11 others, including five city councilmen, have been convicted of mail fraud stemming from a variety of charges.

Former Moriarty associate Richard Raymond Keith, who is serving a four-year prison term in the federal prison at Boron, told the FBI in 1985 that Nestande tried to solicit a $10,000 campaign contribution for Gov. George Deukmejian’s 1982 campaign in return for helping to steer a contract to operate an Orange County dump to Wolfe.

In reports of interviews conducted by FBI agents, Keith was quoted as saying that the $10,000 campaign contribution was made to Deukmejian by former Moriarty employee Albert Hole, a former state fire marshal.

Nestande denied allegations raised by Keith and said he would “be willing to sit down beside Richard Keith and take a lie detector test.”