D.A. Opens Inquiry Into Roth-OCTA Talks : Plea agreement: Attorney says ex-supervisor is free to lobby county officials because of loopholes in plea-bargain.

Less than nine months after he agreed to a four-year ban on lobbying activities, convicted former Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth has begun meeting with county transportation planners on behalf of a local engineer who wants money for a bus research project.

The engineer, Jack Brennan of Fullerton, said Roth proved crucial in making “introductions” for him, helping him secure access to Orange County Transportation Authority officials to pitch a stalled idea for converting county buses to battery power.

“Obviously, he knew people at OCTA,” Brennan said in an interview. “If I’d have picked up the phone and made a cold call, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the attention” accorded by OCTA officials after Roth approached them on his behalf.

The recent meetings raise questions as to whether Roth violated a lobbying ban included in the plea-bargain agreement he signed March 25--an agreement that ended a yearlong influence-peddling probe and allowed the former supervisor to avoid the prospect of jail time. He pleaded guilty to seven violations of the Political Reform Act involving illegal gifts from business people.

Dana Reed, a lawyer who represented Roth during the investigation, said Roth did not want to discuss the issue Friday. But Reed maintained that--contrary to assertions by prosecutors--Roth is free to lobby anyone he wants on the local level, because of loopholes in the way prosecutors drafted the agreement.

“I am certain that he has been complying with the agreement,” Reed said.

Officials in the district attorney’s office, contacted by The Times earlier this week about the propriety of Roth’s activities on Brennan’s behalf, later visited several people familiar with Brennan’s project to question them about the former supervisor’s apparent lobbying, according to those interviewed by district attorney’s investigators.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes said that investigators want to determine whether Roth violated the four-year ban on lobbying work. “If we believe there was a probation violation, we would file a petition and take it back in front of the judge . . . potentially subjecting (Roth) to additional punishment,” Ormes said.

In securing the agreement last spring, Ormes said, prosecutors wanted to ensure that Roth, once among the county’s most powerful politicians before his guilty plea, would not be able to attract business clients by offering to use his influence with people over whom he once had authority.

“That was specifically the kind of thing we were trying to avoid,” he said. “The intent of the judge’s order was clearly to bar lobbying for a four-year period of time--at all levels.”

A state government code section referenced in the agreement defines a lobbyist as anyone who is paid or receives “economic consideration” to influence legislative or administrative actions before “any elective state official, agency official or legislative official.”

Ormes said that other sections of the government code make it clear that the term “agency” means both state and local agencies, while Reed contends that the agreement only prohibits Roth from lobbying state officials.

Before a packed Santa Ana courtroom, Roth pleaded guilty in March to seven misdemeanor charges that he received thousands of dollars in home improvements, landscaping, rent, meals and other gifts from people doing business with the county.

The plea agreement, reached less than a month after Roth resigned from the Anaheim-centered supervisorial district seat he had held for more than five years, also set several other conditions: It required Roth to pay $50,100 in fines, perform 200 hours of community service, serve three years of probation and not seek elective office for four years.

One key issue in the latest chapter of the Roth case centers on whether he was to receive anything for helping Brennan push the bus project.

Brennan, a retired engineer who worked in the aerospace industry for 30 years, said he has not paid Roth money to help him with the project. But he added that “from my perspective, if the thing were to take off and we got production orders, then certainly I would consider having Don be involved (financially) in doing some marketing and things.”

Brennan said he and Roth had not specifically discussed any future financial relationship in the project, but added: “I’m sure that could have been in the back of his mind.”

Brennan insisted, however, that Roth’s motives were “purely philanthropic as far as I could see. . . . There’s a promise of benefit to the community, to the kids, to the school district and, as a former supervisor, I guess he would have interest in that.”

Brennan is working with the Bonita School District in San Dimas to get research money to test the idea of converting diesel buses to battery power. Brennan said he had discussed the idea extensively with the Air Quality Management District, but that $340,000 in research money promised by the district earlier this year never materialized because of contractual problems.

Brennan, in searching for new ways to push the idea, said he was introduced to Roth about two months ago by a “mutual friend” whom he would not identify, and Brennan spoke with the former supervisor about his ideas for creating battery-generated buses.

Brennan said Roth began suggesting federal and local agencies that might provide funding. “You really ought to talk to the Orange County Transportation Authority,” Brennan quoted Roth as telling him soon after they began their discussions.

Roth then discussed the idea of battery-powered buses on Brennan’s behalf with OCTA Chief Executive Officer Stan Oftelie at a lunch at La Brasserie in Orange in October, paid for by Oftelie. Roth was one of Oftelie’s bosses when the supervisor served on the OCTA board for two years, prior to his resignation.

Oftelie initially downplayed the lunch’s significance when asked about it earlier this week. “I don’t remember the details. Roth mentioned (the bus project) and never brought it up again,” he said, adding that he knew of no meeting that followed the lunch.

In an interview Friday, however, Oftelie offered a somewhat different version of events.

At the lunch, he said, “I told Don to send me some stuff on it and when it arrived I walked it down to (OCTA planner) Jim Ortner’s office and told him to do a debriefing, you know, tell them what they did wrong last time” in an application before the AQMD “and how they might be able to improve their chances if they proposed it again.”

A short time later, Ortner and staff member Michelle Kerckhoff met with Roth and Brennan at the agency headquarters in Orange to discuss Brennan’s ideas for securing a grant from the OCTA to test battery-powered buses. Brennan’s written proposal on the demonstration project says it would take $1 million to fund.

“I went through the proposal with (Brennan), and I pointed out that it still lacked several things,” said Ortner, adding that he cautioned Brennan that the OCTA would happily give him technical support for his project, but not the financial backing he obviously wanted.

The biggest flaw in the proposal was the absence of backing from any major manufacturing companies.

“Roth just sat there and really didn’t say anything,” Ortner said. But when asked why Roth might have attended the meeting, Ortner said: “Roth obviously knows his way around OCTA. After all, he had been on the board here for two years.”

Both Ortner and Oftelie said they were questioned by investigators from the district attorney’s office this week.

Brennan said OCTA officials have shown “no interest” in the idea since the initial meeting with Kerckhoff and Ortner. Kerckhoff is out of the office this week and could not be reached for comment.

The lobbying issue may now come down to a case of dueling legal interpretations.

Ormes, the prosecutor in the case, said the March plea agreement bans Roth “absolutely” from lobbying local officials on behalf of clients--as may have been the case at the OCTA.

But Reed, one of Roth’s attorneys, said that his reading of the law is that Roth is only precluded from lobbying officials at the state level, and he is free to try to win contracts for clients.

Reed said he does not know whether Roth is working with any other business people on government-related projects. Putting aside the “economic consideration” issue--”Let us assume he’s been offered a million dollars to do this”--Reed said Roth’s activities in the Brennan project did not violate the ban, which applies only to lobbying state officials.

Reed said he discussed the legal ramifications of the plea-bargain’s language in some detail with Roth before prosecutors gave him the agreement to formalize in the spring. “I knew exactly what was going on with Don. I read it over before he signed it,” Reed said.

“I have not a clue as to what prosecutors intended. All I know is the document they sent Don to sign,” he said. “They’re all lawyers--they all know how to read the law. I can only assume that’s what they wanted.”