Baugh Asked to Name Others in Election Probe : Politics: D.A. seeks evidence against higher-up GOP involvement, O.C. assemblyman says in conference call.

In a conference call with his GOP colleagues, Assemblyman Scott Baugh said the Orange County district attorney’s office is pressing him to provide evidence against any Republican higher-ups involved in recruiting a Democratic spoiler in last month’s special election, state legislators said Friday.

“Baugh seemed to be saying that the D.A. was offering him something like a plea-bargain, and that if you roll over on who was in on this, we will go easy on you,” said a Northern California Assembly member, who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity.

The member said Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) didn’t mention names in the conference call Thursday morning, but Baugh referred to “a local congressman and an Assembly member--maybe he said an ‘Assembly leader.’ ”

A second legislator, who also heard the conversation, said she believes Baugh was referring to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and Assembly Republican Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove).

The office of Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi is investigating how Republicans fostered the candidacy of Democrat Laurie Campbell in the 67th Assembly District race to draw votes away from a better-known Democratic candidate. Prosecutors are also investigating Baugh’s alleged links to Campbell’s candidacy and possible irregularities in Baugh’s campaign finance reports.

Baugh won the Nov. 28 race, succeeding Assemblywoman Doris Allen, who was recalled the same day.

Baugh declined comment.

Pringle declined to talk about the conference call, which he arranged to discuss Assembly GOP business. His spokesman said the call was “intended to be private, between the members.” Neither Rohrabacher, Baugh’s mentor and chief sponsor in the race, nor his aides could be reached for comment.

Two legislators--Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) and Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga)--confirmed that Baugh discussed his legal predicament during the conference call. However, Brulte said he hung up when Baugh began discussing his legal problems.

Capizzi’s office declined comment.

Baugh’s attorneys, Allan Stokke and Ron Brower, were surprised when told of their client’s comments. They issued a statement on their own behalf, saying “there is no offer of immunity outstanding” to Baugh and noting that “the district attorney has simply said they want to get to the bottom of this matter, no matter where it leads. That is all they have said.

“We are still trying to cooperate with the district attorney’s investigation and at an appropriate point in time, Scott Baugh is interested in speaking to the district attorney or the grand jury.

“Anyone who says anything contrary to those points is simply misinformed.”

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Stokke said the statement was being issued by him and Brower, adding it was not a statement from Baugh. He declined to discuss whether he had discussed the statement with Baugh.

Baugh has yet to meet with prosecutors, though Brower has discussed the case with them.

The Northern California Assembly member, who participated throughout the approximately 25-minute conference call, said Baugh did not elaborate on discussions with the district attorney.

The second Assembly member, who also asked not to be further identified and heard the entire 10 a.m. phone conversation, said Baugh told the group the district attorney “said they had evidence on him, but what they really wanted was Rohrabacher and Pringle and, if [Baugh] would cooperate, he would be off the hook.”

Rohrabacher and Pringle have acknowledged that their aides played some part in aiding Campbell’s effort to run in the 67th Assembly District election.

Campbell was removed from the ballot in October by a Sacramento Superior Court judge who concluded she had filed falsified nominating papers. Pringle, Rohrabacher and Baugh have repeatedly denied helping to engineer Campbell’s candidacy.

Orange County Republicans have acknowledged there were plans to recruit a second Democrat to siphon votes from Democrat Linda Moulton-Patterson, a former mayor of Huntington Beach. Republicans feared Moulton-Patterson would be elected in the winner-take-all replacement race because four Republicans were on the ballot in the Northwest Orange County district.

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Conroy, who was in Palm Desert during Thursday’s conference call, said Baugh “intimated” the district attorney’s office is “trying to go higher . . . on the food chain, but he said he didn’t have anything to offer to them.”

Conroy said Baugh “never said anything about Pringle or Rohrabacher” but did discuss in some detail a search warrant that was executed at his home Dec. 22 by investigators.

In the aftermath of the court-approved search, which ended with a physical confrontation between Baugh and an investigator, Baugh and Rohrabacher have called for Capizzi’s resignation. Rohrabacher has said the district attorney’s office is criminalizing paperwork errors and called the search “a home invasion assault.”

Former Assembly Republican leader Brulte said about 25 Assembly Republicans were on the telephone during the conference call. But some did not stay on for all of it.

Brulte said he was among those who chose to hang up when Baugh began explaining his legal problems. Because of potential legal implications, Brulte said, he did not wish to hear details of Baugh’s troubles with the district attorney.

Assembly Speaker Brian Setencich--who holds the position with the aid of Democratic votes--was not invited to take part in the conference, an aide said.

Brulte said the phone conference was arranged so Republican members could discuss education bonds, as well as coordinate plans for a dinner Tuesday night in Sacramento and a private meeting among Assembly Republicans at 9 a.m. Wednesday, the first day of the 1996 legislative session.

During the call, the Northern California legislator said Baugh explained his legal predicament as one in which “his [campaign] treasurer had made some errors and the DA was trying to pin it on Scott, and so is the treasurer.”

The second Assembly member said Pringle introduced Baugh, who said that “we could ask any questions we wanted to ask.”

“He went through . . . the whole story, that he is clean, that he has nothing to do with [recruiting Campbell or the campaign finance errors]--the whole line . . . he circulates, and how they came in his home and he was naked and they even went through his socks and underwear drawer,” the legislator said.

“He told them the campaign stuff was in the garage and they went through the house anyway,” said the legislator, who labeled the Baugh’s presentation “ridiculous.”

“I don’t find his story believable,” said the GOP legislator, adding that “if you are talking to 22 or more people, you don’t cast aspersions on the district attorney as the first order of business. That was stupid.”