Latinos Accuse D.A. of GOP Politics in Probe of Security Guards at Polls : Investigation: Capizzi denies charges and says U.S. authorities are reviewing findings in ’88 incident to determine if charges should be filed.

A group of Latino community leaders angrily charged Tuesday that Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi is playing politics with his department’s criminal investigations by not resolving a civil rights case involving Republican officials who support his election campaign.

At a press conference, 17 Latino representatives complained that it has been nearly two years since county and federal authorities began investigating whether Republican Party officials working with Garden Grove Assemblyman Curt Pringle’s campaign violated civil rights laws by hiring uniformed security guards at polling places on Election Day in 1988.

They pledged to keep public pressure on the issue by forming a new organization called Americans for Constitutional Justice that will organize pickets at political events--especially Capizzi’s--beginning Thursday.

“We have concluded that the district attorney is prejudiced, biased and is either conspiring to protect those responsible for hiring, instructing and posting the uniformed security guards or is incompetent,” said Rueben Martinez, a Democratic activist and leader of the group.

Latino leaders charged that some Latino voters were intimidated by the guards and did not vote. Republican officials involved in the decision--including members of the county GOP Central Committee and Pringle’s campaign--say the guards were hired in response to rumors that illegal voters were being bused in by Democrats.

“First there was the conspiracy by some county Republicans to deny Hispanics the right to vote,” Martinez said. “Is there now a second, even more serious miscarriage of justice by the district attorney preventing a proper criminal investigation?”

Capizzi said Tuesday that the investigation is substantially complete and the findings are being reviewed by federal authorities in Washington to determine if charges should be filed. He also said that to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, he turned over the authority for the case to Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade last fall.

“I can speak from my perspective that politics are not involved,” Capizzi said. “It sounds like maybe from their perspective, the answer would be different.”

Capizzi, a Republican who is facing a run-off election for the district attorney’s post after being appointed to the seat last January by the Orange County supervisors, also said he did not believe that it was improper for his office to conduct the investigation while he is seeking election.

“The district attorney’s office is a nonpartisan office, so I don’t think there’s any conflict at all,” he said. “There is no legal basis for my non-participation.”

Wade said his office gave its findings from the investigation to federal authorities before June.

“I know they’re considering a couple of things that I’m not at liberty to discuss, but how it’s going to come down in the final analysis, I don’t know,” he said.

Federal prosecutors in Santa Ana declined to comment on the case and others in Washington were unavailable Tuesday.

Martinez said Americans for Constitutional Justice is a bipartisan organization, and one woman attending the press conference identified herself as a registered Republican. Several members, however, are Democratic activists including Martinez and Evelyn Colon Becktell, who is running against state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) in the November election.

Martinez said the group is not affiliated with Capizzi’s opponent in the November election--Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James Enright--or with Pringle’s Democratic opponent, Tom Umberg.

He also said the organization has renewed a request made last fall to state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp to intervene in the investigation because of a conflict of interest in the district attorney’s office. The group is also asking for inquiries into the length of the investigation by the Orange County Grand Jury and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

Rep. James Bates (D-San Diego) has already asked that Congress conduct an inquiry into why the investigation has taken so long.

“We have been cheated; we have been lied to; we have been denied our dignity as American citizens; we have been treated without respect; we have been made fools long enough,” Martinez said.