Hearing Nears for Ex-Judge on Alleged False Residency Claims

It’s been five years since Joanne Harrold was removed from the bench in West Orange County Municipal Court after a judge invalidated her election victory, saying she had lied about being a county resident. But the issue is far from dead.

On Thursday, Harrold, 43, faces a preliminary hearing on criminal charges related to her 1982 residency claims. She is charged with a felony count of filing a false declaration of candidacy by claiming to be an Orange County resident.

She also is charged--along with her husband, John J. Saporito--with a misdemeanor count of influencing a notary public to sign a backdated deed to a $2-million home on Lido Isle in Newport Beach that her grandmother transferred to her.

Prosecutors claim she actually was a Riverside County resident when she ran to retain her municipal judgeship in 1982, and that she backdated the deed after her residency declaration was challenged, to make it appear that she was already an Orange County resident.

Harrold declined last week to comment. She has claimed from the outset that she should neither be facing criminal charges nor have lost her judgeship.

Yet the potential impact of the case is broader than the immediate effect on Harrold. Prosecutors are concerned that it may affect a major Orange County death penalty case--a triple homicide in which Harrold is the attorney for one of the defendants.

Harrold’s client, Thomas F. Maniscalco, is one of two Hessian gang leaders accused of a 1980 triple murder in Westminster. It could be a race to see who goes to trial first--Harrold or her client.

Six months ago, Deputy Dist. Atty. Anthony J. Rackauckas, who is handling the Maniscalco case, did not appear worried about the Harrold prosecution. He assumed Maniscalco’s case would be over before Harrold ever came to trial.

But the Maniscalco case is hung up in appellate court. And Rackauckas has gone back to his law books to see what would happen to Maniscalco if Harrold were convicted.

An attorney convicted of a felony could be disbarred. In that event, a new attorney would be appointed to represent Maniscalco, further delaying his prosecution.

“These are questions which concern me; I just don’t have the answers,” Rackauckas said. “It would be a tragedy if we had to start over on Maniscalco because Joanne Harrold had to leave the case.”

Maniscalco already has waited more than three years to go to trial. Harrold has been his attorney more than two years. If Harrold had to leave the case, officials involved say, it probably would set the case back at least another year.

Rackauckas said Maniscalco has been reminded at several hearings that Harrold is under indictment. He has said he wants her to continue on his case.

Was Campaign Issue

Harrold was appointed to the bench by then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. in 1980. When she ran to retain the position in 1982, she handily disposed of her two opponents. But one of them, Dan C. Dutcher, made her residency a campaign issue and vowed to take her to court if she won.

Dutcher’s lawsuit against her, a month after the June election, was heard by Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Owen. The judge cited considerable evidence that Harrold had never actually moved from Riverside, where her children were still in school. Owen noted that telephone and utility records showed almost no use of the Lido Isle house until March, 1982--immediately after Dutcher raised the residency issue. Her declaration of candidacy, claiming Newport Beach residency, had been filed a month before, in February.

That hearing also brought out Harrold’s admission that she had backdated the deed; she said she did it to comply with her grandmother’s wishes.

Harrold’s lawyers have argued that she considered Newport Beach her home in February, 1982, when she signed the declaration of candidacy. But even if it wasn’t, they have said, she knew it would be before the election.

But Owen said in court that Harrold was not an Orange County resident in 1982 and didn’t live in the county in 1980 when she was appointed by the governor.

Deception Alleged

“She deceived the governor and she deceived the people of this county every day she sat on the bench,” Owen declared. He invalidated her overwhelming election victory, and Dutcher eventually won her seat in a new election.

A few weeks later, the district attorney’s office took her case to the Orange County Grand Jury, which indicted her.

Harrold, in the meantime, went into private practice as a lawyer. She was convinced the matter was over in November, 1983, when former Superior Court Judge Bruce W. Sumner dismissed the charges against her.

“Thousands of Californians have two residences,” Sumner said. “It is not uncommon for a person to use as his or her voting residence a residence that is not the most used.”

Harrold’s lawyer, Matt Kurilich, said at the time, “only a fool would try to prosecute this case any further.”

But William Bedsworth, the appellate specialist in the district attorney’s office at the time and now a Superior Court judge, responded: “I am the fool that’s going to do it.”

Charges Reinstated

Three years later, Bedsworth won. The 4th District Court of Appeal last year reinstated the charges against Harrold on procedural grounds.

The case has dragged on a year since then, partly because of the death of the new attorney Harrold hired, Marvin F. Cooper.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Maury Evans, head of the district attorney’s special operations unit, is handling the Harrold prosecution. Last week his only comment was that his office pursued the case in appellate court because “we disagreed with the judge (Sumner).”

Evans declined to speculate whether Harrold’s case could interfere with the Maniscalco prosecution.

Rackauckas said: “Don’t think we haven’t given this a lot of thought. So much time and money have already gone into the Maniscalco case, we don’t want to have to start over.”