Roth Attorney Assures Prosecutor : Sentence: Convicted former supervisor will perform physical labor to meet terms of his plea bargain, his lawyer says.

The prosecutor who led the effort to convict former Supervisor Don R. Roth said Wednesday that he is confident that Roth will abide by the terms of his March 25 plea agreement, despite new questions that have arisen over that issue.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes said he spoke with Roth defense attorney Paul S. Meyer this week and is satisfied that Roth will carry out the sentence as agreed in a plea bargain. “I don’t have any regrets” about the plea agreement, Ormes said. “I still think it was a very good disposition from our standpoint.”

Concerns have focused on two elements of the sentence handed down against Roth for violations of public ethics laws: that he perform 200 hours of community service at an Anaheim youth center, and that he pay a $50,000 fine.

Prosecutors had expected Roth to satisfy his community service by helping the Boys & Girls Club of Anaheim relocate. But the former Anaheim mayor has instead been spending his time organizing a golf tournament as a club fund-raiser.

And while prosecutors also said they expected Roth to pay the $50,000 fine from a combination of personal and campaign funds, the former supervisor has been considering a fund-raiser to seek financial aid from associates.

Ormes said that Meyer assured him that Roth will still “put in 200 hours of physical labor” in helping the youth club relocate over the summer--even after his current work on the golf tournament is done.

The prosecutor added that the possibility of a fund-raiser to help Roth pay his fine is “unfortunate,” but legal. “That’s his business. . . . That’s clearly something no one can do anything about,” Ormes said.

Roth pleaded guilty to seven criminal misdemeanors after an 11-month probe by the Orange County district attorney’s office. Many of the potential conflicts of interest were first revealed in The Times.

Roth met with several prominent local lobbyists and business people in Irvine earlier this month to discuss the $50,000 fine, asking whether he should hold a fund-raiser to help pay it, according to associates.

No decisions have been made on a “retirement dinner,” said Meyer, Roth’s attorney. “That’s all still in the talking stage,” he said.

William Taormina, who owns a trash-hauling business and attended the meeting, said Roth “didn’t have the money to pay the fine all at once” and wanted to know whether any of his longtime associates in the business community might help with a fund-raiser later in the spring.

“ ‘I don’t want anything except your advice,’ ” Taormina quoted Roth as saying.

While no consensus was reached, Taormina said he supports the idea. “There are a number of people who have known Don Roth as I have for more than 20 years . . . and we continue to have faith in him,” he said.

But William R. Mitchell, a Roth critic who is president of the Orange County chapter of Common Cause, said the issues of how Roth is carrying out his community service and whether he gets help from friends in paying his fine “are consistent with a pattern of essentially misusing public trust.”

From the point that Roth announced his resignation Feb. 23, Mitchell said, his every action has been aimed at getting the best deal he could. “This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone,” he said.

Roth avoided jail time when he pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanors for failing to report several thousand dollars in gifts and then voting on matters affecting the donors.

Along with the community service and the fine, he was ordered to serve three years’ probation and refrain from seeking public office or work as a lobbyist for four years. Once Roth’s probation is completed, he can request that the conviction be expunged from his record.