NEWS ANALYSIS : Sympathy but Little Relief for Roth’s ‘Rough Times’ : O.C. politics: Supporters urge supervisor to ‘hang in there’ as conflict-of-interest allegations worsen.

With the American flag behind him, Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth stood on stage with fists clenched overhead in the pose of a victorious boxer. It was the GOP primary-night party earlier this month, and as Roth was introduced among the party luminaries, this was his chance to stand among the faithful.

The crowd cheered him. But with many in the audience aware of Roth’s prominence in recent headlines, there was an awkwardness to the moment too. “Hang in there,” Orange County Republican Party Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes--the host for the evening--remembers telling him privately.

Roth is still hanging in there, but less than a month after the GOP party, the news has only gotten worse for the popular two-term supervisor from Anaheim, now under investigation by both federal and county authorities who want to determine whether he exchanged political favors for gifts from allies.

Since that night, the FBI has subpoenaed hundreds of documents as part of its probe into Roth’s relationship with Gerard J. and Donald G. Dougher, brothers who head an Orange County family that owns 12 local mobile home parks. New disclosures have challenged Roth’s accounts of that relationship on several points.

When the news broke in April, Roth, 70, denied any impropriety. In recent weeks, he has declined to comment further on the case.

Roth’s own attorney has said that while he is confident that no criminal laws have been broken, it is likely that the supervisor may have to pay fines and acknowledge civil violations of the state’s Political Reform Act. And local politicos pro and con have become riveted to the drama.

His defenders, however, maintain that Roth is an honest politician who has enjoyed perks of public life no differently than other public figures; the difference, they say, is that Roth is caught up in what his attorney, Dana Reed, calls a “bitter, horrible fight” between the Dougher brothers, who are suing each over over control of their mobile home park network.

But as new evidence has mounted in the case, so too has political speculation about possible challengers or successors to Roth for his powerful post. The supervisor is up for reelection in 1994.

“It’s rare that an incumbent gets in this much trouble,” said Howard Adler, chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party.

“I really don’t want him to judge him in advance of the investigation, but clearly, if all these things are true, it’s certainly more than just bad judgment,” he said. “I think these allegations are potentially as serious as what brought Ralph Diedrich down.”

Diedrich--a former chairman of the Board of Supervisors who, like Roth, represented the Anaheim area, but was a Democrat--was convicted of bribery and conspiracy in 1979 and spent nearly two years in prison. He was accused of accepting nearly $30,000 from an Anaheim firm, then voting with the 3-2 majority to let the firm develop land that had been set aside as part of an agricultural preserve. He died in 1988, still maintaining his innocence.

Federal authorities, the Orange County district attorney’s office, and the state Fair Political Practices Commission--all probing the Roth affair--have not brought any civil or criminal charges against the former Anaheim mayor. And officials have declined to discuss the status of their inquiries.

“We’re continuing our investigation,” Maury Evans, chief assistant district attorney, said this week. “That’s all I can say.”

The FBI has said that it wants to determine whether Roth was engaged in a quid pro quo with the Doughers to exchange gifts for political favors. Such an arrangement could constitute a criminal offense under federal law.

Roth himself has acknowledged in publicly filed reports that he has received many gifts from constituents--Los Angeles Rams and Disneyland tickets, champagne and food baskets, golf outings, the use of a Hawaii condominium, dozens of lunches and dinners, and more. In 1991, Roth reported gifts valued at $2,880.50, more than any of the other four county supervisors.

The current investigations, however, focus in part on apparent gifts that Roth did not report: meals, trips, the use of vacation condominiums in Palm Springs, and at least one sizable loan.

Attention has focused on the Doughers because family members hosted Roth on three trips to Santa Catalina Island in 1990 and 1991, bought him more than a dozen meals, and allowed him to defer rent at a trailer park in Anaheim until after he moved out last year. Political finance experts say this last arrangement, as described by Roth, amounted to an $8,500 interest-free loan. None of these items were reported in Roth’s annual economic interest statements, required of all public officials in California.

Then, last Dec. 10, Roth voted along with the other four supervisors to overturn a Planning Commission decision and approve a $5-million condominium project on land owned by the Doughers. Several times, Roth had also used a Palm Springs vacation condominium owned by the project’s developer, Magdy Hanna of Newport Beach. These condominium gifts were not reported either.

Experts say that Roth’s failure to report these items and his Dec. 10 vote could represent violations of the state’s Political Reform Act, passed in 1974 in the wake of voter discontent over Watergate.

The act requires officeholders to report gifts of more than $50. It also caps annual gifts from a single source at $1,000 and bars local officials from voting for a year on matters affecting anyone who has given them more than $250 in gifts during the past year.

Because Roth voted on a matter affecting an unreported gift giver, political finance expert Robert M. Stern--co-author of the 1974 law--said he believes that “here you have issues that go right to the heart of the Political Reform Act.”

“It’s the idea that financial interests should be disclosed and that there should be disqualification from voting if certain levels of gifts are surpassed,” Stern said.

New disclosures on the case have come out almost weekly in the press, but key questions remain for lawyers and politicians to debate. Among them:

* Was there an agreement in August, 1990, for Roth to pay the Doughers $500 a month for his stay at the Anaheim park after he moved out?

In defending the arrangement, Roth in April gave The Times a copy of a one-page lease that said the rent was to be paid after he moved out. But park owner Donald Dougher disclosed last week that the agreement was backdated by more than 16 months and was not signed until January of this year.

Dougher said his brother Gerard told him that the agreement had to be backdated because unnamed people “might be making trouble for Roth.”

* After accepting several apparent gifts and the rent deferral from the Doughers, why did Roth cast a vote in December on the condominium project, rather than simply abstaining? The project--which passed 5-0--appeared headed for approval even without his vote.

“I haven’t asked him,” said Reed, his attorney.

* Apart from the legal implications, what affect will the current investigations have politically on Roth, one of the most influential and best-known politicians in Orange County?

While some officials in the Anaheim and Orange area have already begun floating names of possible challengers to Roth, Fuentes, the head of the county’s Republican Party, attacks such politicking as premature.

“It’s rather vulturous on the part of the Democrats to be circling this early,” he said. “Don Roth is a spunky fighter, so they had better be careful how loudly they offer their names as challengers.”

Fuentes added that “whenever this level of press--negative press--is focused on an officeholder, some damage is done. . . .

“How much damage is still a ways off to be determined. Many of the headlines have been brutal, and I hate to see that, but I do very much believe in the process, and I trust right will prevail.”

While Roth has been concerned in recent weeks about health problems after the discovery of a tumor on his left lung, some associates said that they believe the emotional wear of the political imbroglio has also begun to show.

The issue has dogged him for weeks, attracting both sympathy and scrutiny.

Roth spoke this past week at a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the opening of an adolescent rehabilitation center in Orange. But his attention from the center was diverted when a television crew wanted to know what he was going to do about recent disclosures in the conflict-of-interest investigations.

In government hallways, too, county officials recount that they have passed Roth in recent weeks and given him a silent thumbs-up sign to let the supervisor know he has their sympathy.

And even in church, the issue captures attention.

Last month at the Garden Church in Anaheim Hills, with Roth sitting toward the front, the pastor let the congregation know that “there is one in our midst who is going through some rough times” and asked them to keep the unnamed person in their prayers.

Pastor Bryan Crow told a reporter later that he was referring to Roth, but the name was unnecessary for some in the church that day. Said Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter, also present: “We all knew who he was talking about.”

Times staff writer Kevin Johnson contributed to this report.

Roth’s Dealings With the Doughers

* Aug. 15, 1990: After separating from his wife of 14 years, Roth moves into the Dougher-owned Ponderosa Travel Trailer Park in Anaheim. He pays no rent at the time.

* Nov. 19, 1991: The Roth divorce becomes final. He is ordered to pay his wife, Jackie, $2,100 a month in support and to split the proceeds from the sale of their Anaheim Hills home.

* Nov. 22: Don Roth travels to Santa Catalina Island as a guest of Gerard J. Dougher and his wife, Dorothy. On the back of a credit card receipt subpoenaed by the FBI, Dorothy Dougher notes that the purpose of the trip is to “discuss supervisors’ meeting on rezoning” of a Midway City property the Doughers want to sell to developer Magdy Hanna. (Earlier, in 1990 and 1991, the Doughers had also hosted Roth on two other trips to Catalina.)

* November, 1991: According to Planning Commissioner Chuck McBurney, Roth--who appointed him--calls to find out why the commission rejected the $5-million Midway City project on a 2-2 vote.

* Dec. 10: Roth and the other four supervisors override the Planning Commission and approve the Midway City development. Gerard Dougher attends the supervisors’ hearing and is named at the outset as a party in the rezoning project, a tape-recording shows. (Roth later told The Times that he was unaware Dougher had any interest in the property.)

* December, 1991: Roth moves out of the Anaheim trailer park. Around this time, FBI agents and newspaper reporters had been making inquiries about the terms of Roth’s stay at the Doughers’ park.

* Jan. 2, 1992: According to Donald Dougher, his brother asks him to sign and backdate to Aug. 15, 1990, a rental agreement with Roth. The agreement states Roth had agreed to pay $500 a month rent to live in the trailer park, with rent due when he moved out. Donald said his brother told him the rental agreement would be signed later that day by Roth.

* Jan. 23: Roth signs a rent check for $8,500 to Ponderosa Mobile Home Estates.

* April 1: Roth files his public Statement of Economic Interests, which does not list the rental agreement with Dougher, the Catalina trips, or several meals around the state that credit card receipts show the Doughers bought for him.

* April 16: Asked about whether he paid rent during his stay at the Dougher park, Roth denies any impropriety and gives The Times a copy of the rental agreement dated Aug. 15, 1990, and a copy of the $8,500 canceled check to Ponderosa. He says it represents the 17 months’ rent he owed when he left the park. Roth says in the interview that he knows of no business the Doughers have had before the county.

* April 18: The Times first reports that Roth, in apparent violation of state law, had failed to disclose in his economic interest statement either the Catalina trips or the deferred rent, which amounted to an $8,500 interest-free loan from the Doughers. The Times discloses that the FBI is looking into the matter.

* May 3: The Orange County district attorney’s office acknowledges that it is conducting an investigation into possible state conflict-of-interest violations by Roth.

* May 1: The Times reports that while Roth’s economic interest statement showed he had owned stock in a sunscreen lotion company, it failed to disclose that he had not paid for the stock, an apparent violation of state law. Roth received the stock--a 2% ownership in the fledgling company--from political consultant Harvey Englander, who has appeared on behalf of several corporate clients before the Board of Supervisors.

* May 1: Roth cancels a trip to Euro Disneyland in France as a part of a local delegation visiting the new resort; an aide says that, in part because of the recent controversy, the supervisor wants to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

* June 4: The FBI serves a federal grand jury subpoena to obtain copies of hundreds of Dougher corporate documents, including credit-card receipts for meals with politicians and canceled checks for $99 donations made by family members to local candidates.

* June 24: The Times reports the backdating of the lease and learns from Donald Dougher that the FBI has asked him about it.

Researched by GEORGE FRANK and ERIC LICHTBLAU / Los Angeles Times