State Parks Official Investigated for Smog-Check Fraud : Probe: Maintenance chief for 11 sites in Orange and San Diego counties allegedly used public money to pay for inspections that weren’t made. No charges have been filed.

State officials are investigating allegations that an Orange County-based parks official used state money to buy smog checks for state vehicles that apparently were never inspected.

In a search-warrant affidavit filed last month in Riverside County Municipal Court, state investigators alleged that David V. Gallardo, maintenance chief for 11 state parks in the Orange Coast district in Orange and San Diego counties, paid a Riverside garage to issue smog-check certificates for at least 10 vehicles that officials said were never tested.

Gallardo, 39, of Riverside declined to comment Wednesday. Officials with the state Department of Parks and Recreation also declined to comment.

No charges have been filed.

The state Department of Consumer Affairs’ Bureau of Automotive Repair, which oversees the investigation, is expected to hand its case over to the Riverside district attorney’s office this week or early next week. Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark McDonald, who will handle the case, said the allegations against Gallardo are unusual and “ironic.”

“I had never heard of anything like this before,” McDonald said Tuesday. “California is trying to bring its smog level down to federal compliance. And in this case, it’s the state’s vehicles that are not meeting current standards and are out there polluting the sky.”

In the affidavit, state investigators allege that Gallardo, along with owners of two Riverside garages, were involved in a “conspiracy . . . for the purpose of defrauding the state of California out of public monies.”

Among the charges that investigators will ask McDonald to consider are embezzlement, falsification of records by a public officer, entering false data into the state’s computer system, perjury and fraud.

It is not clear how much of the state money Gallardo paid to the garage for inspections that were never performed, McDonald said.

Investigators allege that Gallardo issued state checks to H & H Smog and Tune-Up Center of Riverside--and allegedly received kickbacks for them--to pay for smog inspections and repairs that were never done. Gallardo is authorized to issue checks, drawn from the district’s purchase-voucher fund, of up to $500 to pay for maintenance and operation of the parks in the Orange Coast district, which includes Crystal Cove, Huntington and Doheny state beaches.

Investigators were tipped to the alleged scheme last September when an employee with the state Parks and Recreation Department provided them copies of invoices and vehicle mileage logs showing discrepancies between the records kept by H & H and the Orange Coast district.

For example, the affidavit reported, state computer records, as entered by H & H, show that a 1988 Dodge truck owned by the Orange Coast district underwent smog testing at 3:14 p.m. on May 25, 1993. The confidential informant gave investigators state mileage logs that recorded the same truck as being at a San Diego County beach at the time, the affidavit said.

According to court records, the informant also provided records to show that Gallardo signed checks to pay for smog checks and repair on at least 10 state cars. The state mileage logs showed that the cars were elsewhere during the purported inspections logged in H & H records.

The affidavit also stated that the informant told investigators H & H was provided a parks and recreations document that lists the mileage, license plate, year and make of each vehicle under the jurisdiction of the Orange Coast district.