Duffy Defends Outside Jobs, Tells of Others : Sheriff: The county’s top law enforcement officer was besieged by questions about his unreported income.

San Diego County Sheriff John Duffy, besieged before and after a press conference Tuesday by questions about his hidden income as a private consultant, said he has done nothing wrong and asserted that there are other outside organizations he has worked for that the press “has missed.”

The sheriff also said he will send a written “formal complaint” to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, which on Sunday revealed that Duffy has been working as a paid consultant for at least six years and has never publicly disclosed any of the outside income.

He bitterly attacked that story and other recent articles in The Times, saying, “They’re not only inaccurate, but totally false, misleading and deliberate.”

Moments before joining state Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy at the press conference on an unrelated matter, Duffy angrily told a television reporter for KGTV (Channel 10) who was asking about the private consulting work, “If you ask me any more questions, I’ll probably give you the finger and ignore you.”

The Times reported Sunday that Duffy, who has said he intends to seek a sixth four-year term as county sheriff, has worked as a private consultant for two private for-profit firms: Koba Associates in Washington and Sacramento-based Ralph Andersen & Associates.

Duffy was hired last year by the Andersen firm as a consultant reviewing the Arlington, Tex., Police Department. Arlington officials said they paid Andersen $66,000, but Andersen officials have refused to disclose how much of that was paid to Duffy.

Koba Associates said it has hired Duffy to work more than 38 days on seven different projects since 1983, as a consultant reviewing research proposals for the National Institute of Justice.

It said it paid him a flat rate of $150 a day, plus picked up his travel, lodging and meal expenses.

Duffy, in his comments Tuesday, said there is other consulting work he has performed for outside organizations that have not yet been disclosed.

“The reporter missed a couple, as a matter of fact,” he said.

“When I worked for the National Institute of Corrections, to which I was appointed by the attorney general of the United States, they paid me so much per meeting.”

Duffy did not make clear whether he has worked for any other for-profit companies. But he claimed, by way of comparison, that other local politicians collect extra income from public boards.

“The Board of Supervisors gets paid for work on the Coastal Commission,” he said. “They get paid for all kinds of meetings. That’s not unusual.”

But Shirley Hulett, a county spokeswoman, said in an interview Tuesday that no members of the Board of Supervisors also serve on the California State Coastal Commission. The only commission member from the San Diego area is Chula Vista City Councilman David Malcolm.

Duffy arrived at the press conference to meet McCarthy and to push for a new ballot initiative to raise additional law enforcement funds. But the sheriff was immediately surrounded by print, television and radio reporters from the moment he stepped out of his car, with questions about his consulting work.

He was also surrounded and followed to his car at the end of the conference.

In the few comments he did make, Duffy said he is not required to disclose the extra income on his state economic reporting forms.

“It was reported to the United States Internal Revenue Service and the state of California,” he said.

Asked if he was paid for his consulting work, he said, “That’s right.”

When it was suggested that he was legally required to report the outside income on his Statement of Economic Interests forms, he said loudly: “You’re wrong. You’re absolutely wrong.”

According to the state’s Political Reform Act and the county Conflict of Interest Code, Duffy must publicly disclose all income over $250 from any “county-related source,” which is any “source, business entity or trust” that is located in San Diego County or conducts business in the county.

Both the Koba and Andersen firms have had ties to San Diego County.

Andersen contracted with county officials earlier this year to stage a personnel classification seminar, at the same time that Duffy was working for the company on the Arlington project. Koba conducted a research project on house arrest procedures in San Diego in 1987, in which Duffy participated.

Duffy asserted that he is a full-time sheriff and that he often conducted the private consulting work on his own time.

“I put in, always, at least 10 hours a day, often 12 hours a day,” he said. “I work on weekends.

“Much of this (private consulting) stuff was all done in my house reading grants for which they reimbursed me $150. That’s how I spend my weekends.”

He added, “I hardly think that’s outside income.”

But according to Duffy’s office calendars for this year, the sheriff was in Texas and Washington on three occasions on normal workdays during the week, for work which The Times later learned was on behalf of the Koba and Andersen companies.

His calendars show that he traveled to the Arlington area on Wednesday, Feb. 1, and stayed there “all day” on Feb. 2.

He traveled to Texas on Sunday, Feb. 12, returning the night of Tuesday, Feb. 14.

And he traveled Monday, April 3, to Washington, where he remained through April 4.

The Times reported earlier this year that Duffy took 16 trips totaling at least 50 days in the first half of this year for a wide range of reasons. But he said Tuesday that those long absences do not pose problems for his staff.

“People in my organization at the top wish I was out of town more often because when I’m in town I’m on their back all the time,” he said.

The sheriff also denied that some of his top commanders are kept in the dark about his many trips out of town. And he refused to comment about a television interview earlier this year in which he denied that he had any second income at all.

But Duffy said he has no problem with a local attorney’s decision to file a complaint over his hidden income with the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

“If he’s going to do it, let him do it,” Duffy said. “I’d be delighted to have the FPPC look at this.”

Duffy also laughed when he characterized the lawyer, Everett Bobbitt, as “the attorney for the persons representing the Rambo Squad.”

Bobbitt, who contracts with the Deputy Sheriffs’ Assn. to provide legal services to deputies accused of misconduct, is representing a group of deputies who have been disciplined by Duffy for allegedly assaulting inmates at the County Jail in El Cajon.

Told about Duffy’s comments Tuesday on the Rambo Squad, Bobbitt noted that there is a court order preventing any public comment by the sheriff on the case.

“My comment would be that John Duffy and I are both barred from the court on commenting on that, and I’m sorry that he now chooses to violate that court order,” he said.

Bobbitt has emphasized that he will file the FPPC complaint as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Deputy sheriffs’ Assn.

Meanwhile, Randall Dibb, a DSA director, said Tuesday that his group will review the recent disclosures over Duffy’s hidden income. “It’s something the DSA will look at,” he said.

James K. Stewart, director of the National Institute of Justice, said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Washington that the institute has hired Koba as a private company under competitive bid. He also noted that, ironically, Duffy sat on the institute’s board of directors in the early 1980s and “came up with the idea” of reducing consulting costs from a high of $400 to the current rate of $150 a day.