Lawyers Receive $35,000 in Roth Campaign Funds

Embattled Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth has spent nearly $35,000 in political campaign contributions to hire lawyers to represent him and staff members during an ongoing investigation into allegations of influence peddling against the supervisor, Roth reported in a state filing Tuesday.

The legal fees marked by far the biggest single expenditure from Roth’s political account. The supervisor spent more than a quarter of his campaign cash on some of the county’s highest-priced lawyers, records showed. The expenditures appear to be legal under state political law, but they nonetheless drew questions and some criticism Tuesday from both law enforcement officials and campaign reform activists in the county.

Contributors to past Roth campaigns “have lost control of how their money is spent,” said William R. Mitchell, who is president of the Orange County chapter of Common Cause and a frequent critic of Roth’s conduct. “It’s an example of his pattern of violating the public trust.”

Meanwhile, authorities notified the Orange County Superior Court on Tuesday that they have executed a new search warrant in the Roth probe, seeking more evidence on Roth’s 1990 application for a home loan.

Now entering the 10th month of their investigation, prosecutors are seeking to determine whether Roth traded political favors for thousands of dollars in trips, home improvements, airline flight upgrades, an $8,500 loan and other unreported gifts from local business people.

Roth has denied any wrongdoing and vowed that he will be exonerated.

The district attorney’s office stepped up its investigation last week, serving search warrants Jan. 25 on two local banks to gain access to Roth’s financial records. In an accompanying affidavit, authorities said they suspect Roth of fraud, perjury, campaign money laundering, obstruction of justice, and other possible felonies.

The district attorney’s office also leveled one previously undisclosed allegation last week, saying that Roth may have falsified a home mortgage loan. Authorities suspect that Roth may have violated federal law by falsely claiming income of $4,000 a month as a “consultant.” In new papers filed Tuesday with the Superior Court criminal clerk, the district attorney’s office disclosed that it had expanded its search for records, serving warrants Jan. 27 on American Commerce Mortgage Co. in Anaheim, which took Roth’s loan application, and Provident Savings Bank in Riverside, which held the initial home mortgage.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy N. Ormes, lead prosecutor in the case, said authorities served the latest search warrants to find out what the American Commerce Mortgage Co. knew of Roth’s income claims. “We want to know what information was given to them prior to the loan approval,” he said.

American Commerce National Bank in Anaheim, one of the banks served with a search warrant for Roth records Jan. 25, infused Roth’s 1986 campaign with loans totaling more than $100,000. Bank President Gerald Garner, a friend and occasional golfing partner of Roth’s, has personally contributed about $7,300 to Roth’s campaigns, records show.

Garner himself helped set up the mortgage loan for Roth’s new Anaheim Hills home in 1990, saying he would “take care of it,” according to the supervisor’s wife at that time, Jackie Roth.

Officials at both American Commerce Mortgage Co. and American Commerce National Bank, located in the same building, insisted in interviews last week that the two firms share no management or ownership ties. But state records show that Daniel Garner, brother of Gerald and a vice president of the bank, is a board member of the mortgage company. Daniel Garner did not return a call for comment Tuesday on that apparent discrepancy. .

Despite the flurry of allegations against him, Roth has vowed to seek reelection to his North County supervisorial seat next year. But campaign reports received by the county registrar’s office Tuesday show that his legal fees during the last six months of 1992 have brought Roth’s campaign fund down to $63,964. Roth took in only $500 in new contributions to his political campaign during that same period.

Roth has now spent a total of $25,000 in campaign funds in payments to Orange County lawyers Dana Reed, Darryl Wold and Paul S. Meyer, records show. He owed an additional $1,130.42 in unpaid billings as of Dec. 31.

In addition, Roth used $9,725 in the last six months of 1992 to pay the Santa Ana law firm of Stokke & Riddet to represent several staff members, including four subpoenaed to appear before the Orange County Grand Jury as part of the investigation.

Roth declined comment on the campaign report Tuesday. Reed said he expects future legal fees to be “minimal” because most allegations against Roth have already surfaced.

State government codes allow local politicians to use campaign funds to pay any legal fees arising “directly” from their political and professional duties, and lawyers familiar with the case said Roth’s use of his campaign account appears to fall within those boundaries.

But Assistant Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade said he is uncertain whether Roth’s campaign can pay the legal bills for staff members who might have evidence against the supervisor.

“To use this money for, in effect, someone else’s lawyer, I don’t know of a precedent for that,” Wade said. “I’d be glad to be educated. But I’d really want to take a look at that.”

Activist Shirley Grindle, who helped secure passage of a county campaign finance reform initiative last year, said she is also bothered by the issue.

“I feel it’s morally wrong that he spent anybody’s money but his own for his legal defense against things that were clearly of his own doing,” she said.

But contributors to Roth’s campaign said they weren’t bothered by the idea of their political donations paying for Roth’s lawyers.

While he might feel differently if Roth were convicted, attorney Daniel E. Corey of Irvine said: “It doesn’t bother me. . . . Don’s made a lot of contributions to Orange County, and I’m a believer that you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

As Reed said last month, Roth also reported in his campaign filing Tuesday that he had reimbursed his campaign $2,679 for air fare to Europe that had been double-billed to both his political account and to a publicly funded transportation commission.