3rd GOP Worker Guilty in O.C. Election Scheme

A former staff aide to Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle pleaded guilty Wednesday to participating in a Republican scheme to manipulate the ballot in last year’s 67th Assembly District election, becoming the third GOP worker in less than a week to be convicted in the election fraud case.

Mark Richard Denny, 27, a paid employee of the speaker’s until Tuesday, admitted that he illegally circulated nominating petitions on Sept. 21 for decoy Democrat Laurie Campbell, knowing that he was not going to sign them. Denny resigned his post as a field representative in Pringle’s Garden Grove office Tuesday, his attorney said.

Denny--like two other GOP workers who have pleaded guilty since Friday to involvement in the scheme--named Rhonda Carmony, a top aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), as instrumental in the ploy, according to their sworn declarations to the court.

Jeffrey Christopher Gibson, who managed the campaign to recall then-Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), pleaded guilty Monday, and Richard Martin, a campaign worker for Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), pleaded guilty Friday. All admitted to participating in a plan to put Campbell on the ballot to siphon votes from a more established Democratic candidate in the Assembly race.

In the six months since Campbell filed her nominating papers, county GOP leaders have gone from ridiculing charges by Democratic leaders that the Campbell candidacy was engineered by Republican legislators to seeing three aides or campaign workers convicted of violating election laws.

The Nov. 28 election was pivotal for the GOP. Baugh’s victory and the recall of Allen the same day gave Republicans the votes to control the Assembly. With Baugh providing the winning margin, Pringle was elected speaker in January.

Pringle declined to discuss the case, but issued a news release saying that he was “very saddened by the unfortunate circumstances” that led to Denny’s resignation.

“Mark is a tireless and competent worker who will be missed,” Pringle said. “I wish him and his family the very best of luck in his future endeavors, and thank him for his years of service to me and my constituents in the 68th Assembly District.”

Carmony’s attorney, Creighton Laz, said that “with respect to Denny and Gibson, we disagree with the substance and the spirit and the impression they are trying to create. And we strongly disagree with many of the details and, again, I don’t know why they are saying what they are saying.”

No evidence has emerged to implicate Pringle, Rohrabacher or Baugh, all of whom have denied wrongdoing. While it is not a crime for a Republican to recruit a Democrat, it is a felony to falsely fill out any part of a nomination paper or to knowingly file a falsified nominating petition. Penalties can include fines and imprisonment for up to three years.

Campbell, a longtime friend of Baugh, was removed from the ballot in late October by a Sacramento judge who found she had filed falsified nomination papers. A few days later, the district attorney’s office started investigating the circumstances of her candidacy.

Denny pleaded guilty Wednesday in Municipal Court to a single misdemeanor, fraudulently making a nomination paper, and agreed to cooperate with the district attorney’s investigation of alleged wrongdoing in the 67th District recall and special election.

He told the court he was not bullied or threatened into making the declaration, which is in his own words.

“I believe this case to be an unfortunate misunderstanding,” he said after exiting the courtroom.

Denny declined comment when asked at what point he informed Pringle that he had helped Laurie Campbell get on the ballot. Pringle acknowledged in December that Denny had some role in the effort to place Campbell on the ballot.

Like his two colleagues, Denny was sentenced to three years’ probation, fined $2,800, ordered to serve 200 hours of community service and largely prohibited from participating in campaign work during his probation.

In recounting his actions, Denny said that he and Gibson circulated Campbell petitions at Carmony’s behest. Denny said he was in Pringle’s campaign office at 3 p.m. on Sept. 21, the last day for candidates to file for the election, when Carmony called.

She asked him to help get Campbell, whom Denny said he did not know, on the ballot, Denny said. “I told Rhonda Carmony that I would help and she indicated that she would send someone over with Laurie Campbell’s partially completed nomination papers,” he said in his sworn statement.

Denny also described using a computer in Pringle’s campaign office to obtain the names and addresses of Democrats in a nearby Garden Grove neighborhood. Denny said he and Gibson gathered signatures there from 3:45 to 4:15.

“At the time I was obtaining signatures, I knew that I was not going to sign the petitions as the circulator,” Denny said. He purposely did not sign the petitions because “it could be damaging to the Republican effort” to recall Allen if “a group of staff members associated with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Assemblyman Curt Pringle were placing a Democratic candidate on the ballot in an effort to split the Democratic vote.”

Denny also recounted how, after a cellular phone conversation with Carmony, he joined her, Campbell, Gibson and Martin in the parking lot of the registrar of voters office in Santa Ana just after 4 p.m.

While Carmony, Campbell and Gibson sat in a car, Carmony instructed Campbell where and how to sign the petitions as if she had circulated them, Gibson has said in his own sworn declaration.

Times staff writer Eric Bailey contributed to this report.