Two Judges’ Gifts to Candidates Violated Judicial Canons

Since 1983, Harbor Municipal Judges Calvin P. Schmidt and Brian R. Carter have given several political candidates money from their own campaign war chests in violation of state judicial canons, campaign finance statements show.

Schmidt has raised more than $80,000 in campaign contributions since 1979 from developers, hotel owners, automobile dealers, bankers and attorneys, even though he has never faced an opponent on Election Day. Rather than keep the money for future elections or give it all away to charities, Schmidt made several campaign contributions of his own with it.

In May, 1986, Schmidt lent $20,000 to then state Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress), who was in a tight race for the State Board of Equalization. Half of the interest-free loan was repaid, but $10,000 of it was forgiven in October, 1986. That forgiven portion was in effect a contribution to Carpenter, now the subject of an ongoing political corruption investigation by the FBI in Sacramento.

Schmidt, according to campaign spending statements, also contributed $500 of his own campaign funds to Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley in 1985. Two years earlier, Schmidt’s Cal ’80 Committee contributed $750 to the reelection campaign of Bruce Nestande, then a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Until last year, state judicial canons put a limit of $100 on contributions by a judge or a candidate for judicial office to a non-judicial politician’s campaign. The canons also put a ceiling of $500 on political contributions by a judge or candidate for judicial office in any single year.

Those limits were raised in 1987 to permit judges to contribute $500 per candidate and a total of $1,000 to political campaigns.

Canon 7 of the California Canons of Judicial Conduct says in part: “Judges and candidates for election to a judicial office should not . . . personally solicit funds for or pay an assessment to a political organization or non-judicial candidate; make contributions to a political party or organization or to a non-judicial candidate in excess of $500 per year per political party or organization or candidate, or in excess of an aggregate of $1,000 per year for all political parties or organizations or candidates.”

The state Commission on Judicial Performance has the authority to discipline judges for violating the judicial canons, a system of ethics adopted by the California Judges Assn. Disciplinary action may range from a private reprimand to a recommendation that the state Supreme Court remove the judge from office.

The Commission on Judicial Performance is looking into allegations that both Schmidt and Carter gave favorable treatment to defendants in their courtrooms in return for sexual favors, sources have told The Times.

Last month, in a rare statement by a group that operates in almost total secrecy, the commission announced that it was investigating Carter and had ordered a formal hearing into allegations against him. Among the allegations against Carter is a charge that he gave lenient treatment in court to prostitutes in return for sexual favors, sources have said.

Campaign finance statements show that Carter made two contributions from his own campaign funds to political candidates in 1986, when the limit on individual donations was $100. He gave $200 to state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and $250 to Carpenter’s campaign for the Board of Equalization.

“Each of those donations was a ticket to a political event,” Carter said Tuesday. “I was thinking in the terms of the total allowable contributions.”

Carter also said it was widely known in 1986 that the limit was about to be increased to $500 per candidate with a maximum of $1,000 per year. And he contended that there is uncertainty about whether the limits apply to transfers of campaign funds.

“It was the subject of confusion at the time,” he said. “I’m still not convinced that Canon 7 addresses transfers of money between campaigns. It may mean personal funds.”

But Jeremy Fogel, a Superior Court judge in Santa Clara County and past chairman of the association’s ethics committee, said the limits apply even if the money comes from a judge’s own campaign committee.

“It doesn’t make any difference because the judge controls the committee,” Fogel said.

Schmidt did not return telephone calls from The Times Tuesday.

Schmidt’s campaign committee treasurer, William R. Sammons of San Clemente, said: “I’m not going to comment on anything, except if you want to talk about fishing or hunting or something like that.”

According to Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Keith Wisot, the current chairman of the California Judges Assn. ethics committee, the limits on contributions are intended “to assure that judges do not become involved in partisan politics. It is to assure the independence of the judiciary.”

Wisot said the canon limiting political contributions is in a form recommended by the American Bar Assn. He added that judges are placed under similar restrictions in most other states.

The contribution limits for judges were adopted by the California Judges Assn. in order to maintain impartiality and nonpartisanship on the part of the judiciary, Fogel said.

“The contribution limits are a way of saying that judges have rights as citizens to contribute to people but that they should not contribute in such a large amount as to cast doubt on their impartiality,” Fogel, who headed the association’s ethics committee for three years, said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Under the judicial canons, judges also are prohibited from making endorsements or political speeches for anyone other than a fellow judge.

“It (the rule on contributions) goes together with the feeling that these are nonpartisan offices and that any excessively partisan activity is bound to lead to appearances of impartiality, even if there is no impartiality,” said a staff member with the judges association who did not want his name used.

In addition to the contributions that violated Canon 7, Schmidt gave political contributions in 1986 to candidates for city councils in Costa Mesa and Garden Grove, a school board member in Huntington Beach, former state Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove) and Greg Winterbottom, a candidate for county recorder.

Also in 1986, Schmidt’s committee gave $200 to Newport Beach City Councilwoman Evelyn R. Hart, $200 to Newport Beach Planning Commissioner James Person, who lost a bid for City Council, and $200 to Pat Michaels, who ran unsuccessfully for the Newport Beach City Council.

Fogel said the limits on political contributions protect judges from being pressured by a host of candidates and organizations seeking money and endorsements. In smaller counties especially, Fogel said, judges are sought after for endorsements because of their local community prominence.

“By having limits, judges have a very neutral and inoffensive way of saying they cannot contribute,” Fogel said.

Among the contributors to Schmidt in 1985 was M. Robert Guggenheim Jr. of Newport Beach, who gave the judge’s campaign committee $500.

Guggenheim is the great-grandson of Meyer Guggenheim, who along with his son, Daniel, developed worldwide mining interests at the turn of the century known as the American Smelting & Refining Co.

Earlier this year, Schmidt intervened twice to get Guggenheim’s stepdaughter, Terri Ann McMullen, out of Orange County Jail on felony drug charges even though court detention officers warned against releasing her from jail, according to court records.

After the first time in April, the records show, the woman became a fugitive until she was arrested 6 months later by the Garden Grove police on another drug charge.

McMullen, 28, was first arrested on March 24 of this year in an Orange motel and charged with having 2 ounces of cocaine in her purse. Three men were arrested with her when plainclothes police officers entered the room under the pretense of being telephone repairmen. Among those arrested was Neil Marcell Pine, 32, of Monterey Park, who had a kilogram of cocaine and 29 pounds of marijuana in his car. He later pleaded guilty to charges of possession of cocaine for sale.

Even though her bail was set at $15,000 by another judge and a defense motion to free her without bail was denied, Schmidt telephoned detention release officials and ordered her freed on her own recognizance, according to court records.

After failing to appear for the preliminary hearing on the cocaine charge, McMullen was picked up Oct. 4 by Garden Grove police for allegedly attempting to shoplift a $13 item from a store. Police officers assertedly found cocaine in her purse.

Two days later, Schmidt telephoned detention release officers to have McMullen freed without bail again.

When McMullen failed to appear in court on Oct. 20, Central Municipal Judge Richard A. Stanford asked for written statements from detention release officials explaining why she had been freed earlier.

According to one of those statements, Schmidt was told when he phoned detention release officials that McMullen “has been busy” and was not a very good candidate for being released on her own recognizance, court records show.

Schmidt countered by saying that she was a member of the Guggenheim family and that the “defendants parents were wealthy,” according to the court records.

“Judge Schmidt then told me that he wanted the defendant released on all matters. I did so,” senior detention release officer David B. Ortiz said in one of the written statements.

The next day, Oct. 21, McMullen was picked up by county marshals.

Stanford set McMullen’s bail at $250,000 and ordered that the bail not be reduced by anyone.

When the marshals went to the Guggenheim’s home on Linda Isle in Newport Beach, Guggenheim said he thought that Schmidt “had taken care of these matters,” according to a statement in court records from deputy marshals who later took McMullen into custody.

Schmidt, 58, has been a Municipal Court judge since 1966. Carter, 62, was appointed to the Municipal Court bench in 1982.

Times staff writer Jerry Hicks contributed to this article.