Ex-Supervisor Roth Aims to Start Over

Don Roth sifts through his wallet for the quote he has saved.

“A man’s not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.”

“Nixon wrote that to Ted Kennedy after the incident at Chappaquiddick,” Roth, 72, says on a recent afternoon in the small Anaheim Hills house he shares with his fiancee, former model Dianne Bonnor, 37. “I’m going to carry it in my wallet forever.”

When he resigned from the Board of Supervisors 14 months ago during a political corruption scandal in which he pleaded guilty to charges he received thousands of dollars in home improvements and other gifts from people doing business with the county, Roth says he asked himself: “ ‘Should I go over to the Disneyland Hotel and jump off the top? No. That’s not Don Roth. I’m not a quitter.’ That’s why the Nixon quote is so apropos.”

His rented, humbly decorated home above the Anaheim reservoir seems an eternity from the hallowed Santa Ana chamber where, earning an annual salary of $83,000, he helped oversee the county’s $3.6-billion budget.

Here, instead of polished paneling and the vibrant flags of government, Roth is surrounded by walls hung with the colorful Southwestern folk art his fiancee and her 9-year-old daughter create. White orchids and pink impatiens bloom on a tiny patio. A blue parakeet chirps in a living room cage. A candle embellished with the figures of a guardian angel and child--lit by Bonnor, she says, for the interview--flickers on a living room shelf.

Wearing an aloha shirt and sporting a Mickey Mouse watch, Roth--irritable after a day of hassling a homeowners association over a bill--decides to pour himself a drink, one of the two gin-and-tonics he sips daily. “Never more than two,” he says. “And it’s Ralphs gin. When I can afford it, I like the English stuff.”

Talk of his ex-wife, Jackie Roth, peppers his conversation.

In fact, Roth blames Jackie for his political demise and his inability to come up with enough money to defend himself. The charges were all about a “series of misunderstandings,” he says.

“Jackie, who is the most vindictive person I’ve ever met in my life, was the contributing factor--she told me and everybody else that, if I left her for Dianne, she would destroy me politically no matter what it takes--that I wouldn’t have any elastic left in my shorts.”

In a phone interview, Jackie Roth denies the accusation. “I will be most happy to take a lie detector test as to those remarks about me. I have it all on tape at the D.A.’s office that they are not looking at an unhappy, divorced lady,” she says.

Roth says he wanted to fight the charges, but was put off by the legal fees.

“You know, today we have a great judicial system in America, but it’s expensive. At one point I sat down with my attorneys, Paul Meyer and Dana Reed, and asked them what it was going to cost to continue. (I told them) I think we can defend ourselves. As a matter of fact, Paul Meyer said, ‘I’d love to take this thing.’

“Then they started talking about $100,000. Well, I just got to a breaking point where I said it’s not worth it, I can’t continue at this financial level. The D.A. had an unlimited amount of money, which I didn’t have.

“I sat down and told Dianne: Why should I encumber my life till I die paying back attorney fees? Let’s just quit and start over again.”

But Roth can’t get a job. And he wants one. Badly. “Economic stability is extremely important to me. It’s on my mind every day. You keep pulling out your investments. All my deferred comp was in the bank. Now, I’m spending my deferred comp. And I have my Social Security pension. So that’s the concern I have.” Bonnor is not employed.

“I don’t want to give the misconception that we’re on the poverty line. It’s not just the financial thing; it’s my mental well-being. I’m too young to sit home and watch Rush Limbaugh and soap operas all day long.”

Roth isn’t picky about the job he gets, so long as it’s people-centered. It isn’t power that he wants. As a supervisor, “I never worshiped the power,” he says. “That wasn’t the idea. I never set myself up on a pedestal and thought, ‘Look how big I am.’ ” He has no plans to re-enter politics at the end of the four-year ban that was a condition of his sentencing, he says.

As part of his sentence, Roth also agreed not to lobby state officials. When it was disclosed last year that he was lobbying some local transportation officials, the district attorney’s office objected. As a result, Roth has signed a pledge saying he won’t lobby government officials “at any level” until the end of his probation in 1997.

“I didn’t anticipate it would be so difficult to get back into the mainstream because I’ve always had a lot of success in business,” Roth says. “Whatever I did, I did well. I have a lot of capabilities in management, dealing with people.”

To a future employer, he would say: “Give me a chance. You know, a lot of people know me but have been shy in saying, ‘Yeah, come on, work for us.’ ”

But he believes that potential employers are fearful of negative publicity if they hire him.

“In my opinion, it’s discrimination against me which has hindered me for the last 12 months in getting any meaningful employment. Everybody wants to know what Don Roth is doing. And the minute I do something, it’s going to make headlines: ‘Don Roth Is Working.’ I’m tired of being a whipping boy no matter what I do.”

What is Don Roth doing? Spending time with the woman he calls “the most beautiful girl in the world” and plans to marry “as soon as I get back on my feet.” They already wear wedding rings. “I make him wear his,” Bonnor says. “She’s very possessive,” Roth replies.

The worst part of giving up his supervisorship is the void it left in the couple’s social life, he confides. “Dianne and I were very much in demand for all of the social events, and all of a sudden, a shade drops.”

Now, there’s the 2 1/2-mile walk they take around Anaheim Reservoir each day and the barbecued dishes he whips up almost every night. “Mostly chicken--and we’re into vitamins,” Roth says. “I’ve had to double mine to keep up with him,” Bonnor answers.

Roth is active in the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce and they regularly attend its mixers. “I told her the other night: ‘Watch out for those guys there (at the mixer), they’re all going to try to give you eye contact.’ ” They attend services at Garden Church in Anaheim Hills.

They met in 1985, during his campaign for supervisor, when she was working for his political consultant.

“The first time I saw her, she wouldn’t even look at me. Though, of course I was married at the time, wasn’t I?” Roth says.

“Oh, I did too (look),” Bonnor says reassuringly. “The first thing that struck me about Don was what a great guy he was, how he was always concerned about people. I’ve worked with a lot of other politicians that you knew weren’t that concerned.”

One day Bonnor got up her courage and gave Roth a call. “She said, ‘Can I take you to lunch?’ ” Roth explains. “She took me to Neuport 17 in Santa Ana and it just turned into a lot of smiles, shall we say. And we’ve been great friends ever since. We didn’t start dating until after I was separated.”

The fact that he has a relationship with a woman 35 years his junior doesn’t embarrass Roth. “The age thing doesn’t bother me. Though it bothers some people, I guess. When we see people looking at us in the market or something, we’ll stop and give each other a hug--give them something more to look at.”

Most important for Roth is the fact that she has stood unwaveringly with him. “She has been extremely loyal, has stood by me in all my trials and tribulations, which is very admirable. And that’s one of the great traits that Dianne has--her loyalty and dependability.”

“I love him,” Bonnor says, patting Roth’s back. “He has a heart of gold.”

And there’s another reason she has hung in there, Bonnor confides. “I believe in a higher power. I guess this has brought me a lot closer to it. It was very hard to watch Don be ferociously attacked almost every day.”

Turning toward Roth, she says: “I don’t think the D.A. wants you to work. They were out to destroy you. I think they’re upset because you haven’t gone down. I really think the D.A. wanted you to die. They wanted all your money (Roth was fined $50,100); they insisted that you do manual community service--it had to be labor. I think they’re very disappointed you’re still around.”

“We clearly wished him no ill will,” responds Guy Ormes, supervising deputy district attorney. “As his attorney pointed out, he has done a number of good things for the Orange County community. However, the offenses with which he was charged and pleaded guilty to were clearly criminal in nature. We were conscientious in requiring a fair fine reflective of those crimes and at the same time not exceeding his ability to pay. With respect to his working or not, we have no interest one way or the other.”

If Roth had it to do all over again, would he have handled things differently?

“Of course,” he says. “Many things. Hindsight is always better. . . . I would have kept stricter controls that would have kept me out of this mess.”

And when asked his opinion on the ban on virtually all gifts to county government officials that grew out of his case, he says: “I think it’s gotten to the point now in the county where (a government official) can’t even get a cup of coffee and talk to somebody.”

Roth pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor counts stemming from his failure to report gifts from local business people and then voting on county matters which affected them. The total estimated value: $40,000.

It’s a sunny afternoon when Roth arrives at the Boys and Girls Club of Anaheim, the facility where he performed some of the 200 hours of community service required by the courts.

“It still looks good,” he says, checking out the beige paint and brown trim on the club’s exterior. “I painted it all about seven or eight months ago. There was some graffiti on the back that I had to bleach out twice.”

In minutes, a few kids surround Roth--they remember him--and he follows them into the clubhouse, handing out a hockey stick here, a ball there.

“This is an important place for kids,” Roth says. “They need a place to come to after school while their parents work.”

Last month, Roth helped organize a golf tournament to benefit the club. “I have always enjoyed helping kids,” he explains. “And the elderly too.” And come September, the annual Don Roth Classic golf tourney will benefit Western Youth Services--a Fullerton counseling facility for emotionally disturbed children--where he also performed community service.

Out of the blue, Roth reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a brown envelope containing a picture of him taken at the end of World War II in 1945, when he was a wavy-haired member of a Navy flight crew. “Suppose you could use this in the paper?” he asks. “Be sure they use enough of it to show my wings.”

For a moment, Roth looks radiant and hopeful, like he belongs on this playground. “Just think of how young I was then,” he says, looking at the picture. “My dad was so proud of me.”