Resignation Recalls Old Corruption

Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth’s resignation Tuesday in the middle of a political-corruption investigation recalls an earlier era in Orange County when more than 40 public officials and their aides were indicted during the 1970s.

Virtually all the scandals revolved around bribery, misreporting of campaign funds or misusing county staffs for political purposes. The frantic pace of revelations helped fuel a countywide political reform movement in 1978, which forced the adoption of the TINCUP (Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics) ordinance designed to prevent conflicts of interest in votes by the Board of Supervisors.

“I always refer to those days as the wild and woolly West for Orange County, Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, who took office shortly after the board voted for TINCUP, said in a 1991 interview. “Everybody was being indicted or going to jail.”

Among them:

* Rep. Andrew Hinshaw. In 1976, the former county assessor was convicted of receiving bribes in exchange for lower tax assessments and of using his county staff for campaign work during office hours. He served eight months in state prison and Orange County Jail before going to work for a brother’s lamp-making business in Los Angeles.

* Supervisor Robert W. Battin. He was the first county supervisor to be convicted of political-corruption charges. In 1974, Battin dismissed the advice of his political associates and launched a futile bid for lieutenant governor. Four years later, after his conviction for using his county staff to assist in that campaign, he turned himself in at Orange County Jail. Battin insisted to the end that he had committed no crime.

* Supervisor Ralph A. Diedrich. Known widely as “Super D” and considered the brightest, most powerful county official of his time, Diedrich lost his seat on the board in 1979 after he and his campaign manager were found guilty of bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery. County officials cried openly at Diedrich’s last meeting, but prosecutors were less moved. They had argued successfully that Diedrich had taken a bribe from Anaheim Hills Inc. less than a month after taking office in 1973. Diedrich voted with the 3-2 majority on the board to allow the company to develop 2,200 acres that was once part of an agricultural preserve. Diedrich spent two years behind bars and, once out, never returned to Orange County. He died in 1988 in San Diego at the age of 64.

* Supervisor Philip L. Anthony. He was indicted in 1976 with Diedrich and six others on charges of trying to hide the true source of campaign funds. The case dragged on for years as legal motions piled up. Under this cloud, Anthony sought reelection in 1980 but was defeated by then-Fountain Valley Councilman Roger R. Stanton, whose favorite campaign tactic was to use an empty chair as a prop. The chair, Stanton told audiences, represented the phantom supervisor Anthony would become if reelected but later convicted. Anthony eventually pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of laundering campaign funds. He paid a $5,000 fine. He is now a lobbyist.

* Dr. Louis J. Cella. The physician and two colleagues were indicted in 1976 on state and federal charges of income tax evasion, Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud, embezzlement and conspiracy. Cella, then Orange County’s chief political financier, allegedly diverted hospital funds to a list of handpicked politicians. Cella spent 31 months in federal prison before being paroled in 1980. He voluntarily went to work for a United Farm Workers medical clinic in Coachella.

The corruption showed no sign of abating in the 1980s, a decade marked by a sustained period of self-indulgence and conspicuous consumption.

By 1983, local politics were plagued by a new round of criminal charges linked to an Anaheim fireworks magnate whose influence peddling extended from city governments into the corridors of the state Capitol.

* W. Patrick Moriarty. The owner of Pyrotechnics, came under scrutiny after then-Supervisor Bruce Nestande returned campaign contributions to him. Nestande said that Moriarty had disguised the source of the donations as coming from his employees and business associates when, in fact, they had come from Moriarty himself.

About the same time, political donations from Moriarty to other politicians were traced to a phony address in Irvine. It was alleged that Moriarty was trying to secure favorable fireworks legislation in exchange for the contributions.

A massive investigation ensued, turning up evidence that Moriarty also had provided prostitutes to various politicians and helped arrange loans for some of them as well. Eventually, Moriarty served 29 months in federal prison for political corruption.

Then-Orange County Supervisor Ralph Clark--Roth’s immediate predecessor--was brushed by the Moriarty scandal and retired in January, 1986. Though never formally charged with any crime, Clark was one of five politicians accused of having been supplied prostitutes in return for granting Moriarty special favors.

Clark denied the allegations but left the board, saying he would be tainted by the scandal in any reelection battle. Since his departure, Clark has been controversial as a lobbyist for firms seeking county contracts.

Roth’s political career has closely followed Clark’s. Both served as mayor of Anaheim, and Roth won Clark’s seat on the Board of Supervisors after Clark quit. “The next time I follow him,” Roth quipped in a 1990 interview, “it will be into retirement.”