Top Rohrabacher Aide Faces Charges

The campaign manager and political director for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) was charged Thursday with seven violations of the state Political Reform Act involving her earlier work on a political action committee.

Rhonda J. Carmony helped set up the Southern California Taxpayer’s Committee in 1992 that circulated a flyer critical of a Diamond Bar councilwoman. But Carmony never filed the paperwork as required by law, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Randy Pawloski.

Carmony, now 25, opened a bank account listing herself as the treasurer of the committee and wrote a check to pay political consultant Mark Thompson, for the mailer, Pawloski said.

“She went to the bank, opened an account showing her as treasurer and chairman . . . cuts a check back to Mr. Thompson for what turns out to be a hit piece against a Diamond Bar councilwoman. But she has never filed the proper paperwork,” Pawloski said.

Carmony’s alleged violations include a failure to report contributions to a committee, failure to identify the source of a mass mailer, failure to file a statement of organization of a political committee and the failure of a treasurer to maintain records of a committee. Each of the alleged violations are misdemeanors.

Carmony said Thursday that Thompson “asked me to help him with a piece. I thought he was going to file the paperwork . . . I was in college at the time. I didn’t know how to handle this kind of paperwork properly.”

Carmony, 25, will be arraigned in Central Municipal Court in Santa Ana on Oct. 19.

If convicted, she could serve a maximum of six months and pay a $1,000 fine for each count, Pawloski said.