Developers Did Unpaid Landscaping for Roth : Probe: Baldwin Co. worked at home of O.C. supervisor, who has voted on firm-related matters.

A major development company spent nearly $2,000 to landscape Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth’s Anaheim Hills home two years ago, installing sprinklers and plants without ever receiving payment from the supervisor, interviews and documents show.

Confirmation of the landscaping work came Friday afternoon from Roth’s lawyer, just hours after a top executive with the firm--the Baldwin Co.--appeared before the Orange County Grand Jury as part of a criminal investigation into allegations of influence peddling against Roth.

Roth voted at least five times on Baldwin Co. matters that came before the Board of Supervisors in the year after the job was completed in late 1990. The votes could pose conflict-of-interest problems for Roth if it is determined that the landscaping represented a gift to him from Baldwin.

The job was done by Southern Counties Landscape of Brea, which is also owned by the Baldwin family, and which billed the Baldwin Co. for the work.

Roth’s lawyer, Dana Reed, acknowledged Friday that Roth did not pay for the landscaping work, but blamed Roth’s former wife for not paying the bill. The lawyer added that Baldwin officials sent Reed a new bill this week and that Roth now intends to pay for “his fair share” of the work.

“We are all very upset about this, and we will take care of it immediately,” Reed said.

Since May, the Orange County district attorney’s office has been investigating whether Roth traded political favors for gifts. Disclosure of the landscaping work marks the supervisor’s latest legal predicament.

Friday was the first time that prosecutors have brought witnesses before the grand jury to give sworn testimony in the Roth case. Appearing before the grand jury was Geoffrey S. Fearns, 34, who is president of Baldwin’s Orange County division. Also testifying separately Friday were lobbyist Frank Michelena and a Los Angeles businessman who bought Roth and his staff a $520 lunch in 1991.

Leaving the Orange County Courthouse following his secret testimony, Fearns, who was subpoenaed to appear before the 19-member grand jury, said: “It was an interesting experience, but I can’t say anything more.”

His attorney, Dennis M. McNerney, added that “the Baldwin Co. and Mr. Fearns are in no way a target” of the investigation.

While neither Fearns nor his attorney would discuss the purpose of the appearance, Reed said he assumed the grand jury wanted to question the Baldwin official about the landscaping of the front yard of the Roth home.

Company documents obtained by The Times show that Southern Counties Landscape received approval the Baldwin Co. in October, 1990, to do the landscaping work. As laid out in an earlier proposal, Southern Counties put in an automatic irrigation system, two birch trees, a three-foot carrotwood tree, 2,000 square feet of sod and assorted plants.

As recently as Monday night, Fearns said in an interview that he could “categorically deny” that the Baldwin Co. had any part in paying for the landscaping.

But Reed acknowledged that Baldwin did pay Southern Counties for the work, and an invoice dated Nov. 20, 1990, shows that the $1,950 job was billed to the firm’s Hale Avenue address in Irvine. The invoice also shows that the work was ordered “per Geoff Fearns.”

Reed said Roth did not know the work went unpaid until just recently when Baldwin officials--who had been questioned by The Times--notified him. He noted that Roth separated from his wife and moved out of their new house in mid-1990, and maintained that it was Jackie Roth who ignored the bill from Baldwin.

“This is Jackie Roth setting up her husband--she sat on the bill for 2 1/2 years,” Reed said.

“That’s not true,” responded Jackie Roth when asked about Reed’s statements. “He got a bill the same time I did. My attorney also gave him a copy of the bill a year ago when we were in court on our divorce.”

Jackie Roth showed reporters a handwritten letter from her estranged husband dated Sept. 6, 1990, in which Don Roth wrote that he had recently spoken to Fearns about the landscaping. “Told him to go ahead with the landscaping and mail the total bill to me, which I will pay--no problems,” Roth wrote.

“I’m sick and tired of him blaming me for everything. He better stand up and start facing his own music,” said Jackie Roth.

Jackie Roth said even while she sent the bill to her then-husband, she assumed he wouldn’t have to pay it because of his friendship with the Baldwins. “I thought it was a gift. . . . I just thought they were putting in our front yard,” she said.

Jackie Roth also disputed an assertion made by Fearns in an interview several weeks ago, when the Baldwin official said he had become involved in the Roth landscaping only after Jackie Roth called him to get a referral for a landscaping firm.

Jackie Roth said that Fearns had called her. When asked about this later, Fearns acknowledged that he might have called Jackie Roth about the job at the supervisor’s request.

The landscaping issue could pose more conflict-of-interest problems for Roth, a two-term supervisor whose political career has been threatened by a spate of recent allegations of influence peddling. The FBI says it is probing similar issues, but Roth has not been charged with a crime. He has maintained that he will be exonerated of any wrongdoing.

The supervisor did not report the landscaping job as a gift in state-required disclosure forms for 1990, and he voted at least five times on matters affecting the Baldwin Co. within a year after the work, county records show. Roth was chairman of the board during several of the votes.

Among these votes, the supervisors agreed to reimburse a Baldwin company $792,599 for building a fire station and a road in Portola Hills; waived all fees connected to a lawsuit between the county and Baldwin; and gave the company $1.6 million in credit toward permit fees for development in the Foothill Transportation Corridor, according to county records.

State law requires local politicians to report annually all gifts they have received worth more than $50, and it bans them from accepting more than $1,000 in gifts in a year from a single source. The law also bars politicians from taking part in votes or decisions affecting anyone who has given them more than $250 worth of gifts in the previous 12 months.

The landscaping issue follows disclosures last month by The Times that Roth received thousands of dollars in free or undervalued home improvements from the Presley Co.--a competitor of the Baldwin Co. in the Anaheim Hills housing market. The Baldwin Co. was the ninth-biggest builder in Southern California in 1991, with $175 million in sales, while Presley was 12th, at $128 million, according to a Los Angeles Times survey.

A former mayor of Anaheim, Roth also appears to have accepted trips, meals, flight upgrades, an $8,500 loan and other items from local business people, and later voted on county matters affecting the donors.

Also testifying before the grand jury Friday were Thomas D. Barnett, president of Los Angeles-based Ampco Parking, and Michelena, a well-known Orange County lobbyist who often represents clients before the Board of Supervisors.

Four assistants to Roth had been scheduled to testify Friday and waited through the morning at the courthouse. But their appearances were delayed until Dec. 3 because of scheduling issues, according to their attorney, Allan H. Stokke.

The testimony Friday by Barnett and Michelena is thought to have focused in part on a $520 lunch party that Barnett threw for Roth and members of the supervisor’s staff on Feb. 14, 1991, at the Lafayette restaurant in Garden Grove.

Roth, Barnett, and Michelena--who was lobbying the county on behalf of Ampco--were all present at the lunch. Also there were the four assistants who are scheduled to appear before the grand jury next month--Wilma (Bunnie) Davis, Marcella Fong, Judi Ortega, and Christine Smith.

Barnett has previously said he paid the full bill. Roth has said he had only a bowl of soup and reported it as a $20 lunch on his gift-disclosure form. None of his assistants, who are also required to report gifts, listed the lunch on their state forms.

Five days after that lunch, Roth made a motion that was approved by his fellow supervisors to award Ampco the contract for operating a new county garage complex in Orange. The contract, worth more than $100,000 a year, was granted to Ampco despite a competitor’s objection about the process.

Neither Michelena nor Barnett would comment about the case as they left the grand jury room Friday morning. Asked whether Barnett would have to testify again, Barnett’s lawyer, Warren L. Ettinger of Los Angeles, said: “God willing, no. This is it--his solo performance.”

With four of his clerical aides waiting at the courthouse for possible grand jury testimony Friday morning, Roth’s office was noticeably quiet.

A receptionist was borrowed from another office, while Roth continued working at his office in the rear.

“The day-to-day work goes on,” said chief of staff Steven E. Malone.

Malone said the four employees were “anxious and a little intimidated” prior to their scheduled grand jury appearances. He added that while the investigation has caused “some preoccupation” in the office, “it has not taken a major toll on office morale.”

Times staff writer Kevin Johnson contributed to this report.