Frantic Tale Behind O.C. Indictments

The events that led to Friday’s indictment of legislator Scott Baugh, and threaten to shift the balance of power in the California Assembly, began with an offhand remark by a legal secretary at a Labor Day party last year at Baugh’s Huntington Beach home, according to sworn affidavits.

During a discussion about a likely special election in the 67th Assembly District--and its importance to the Republican Party--someone noted that four declared candidates would dangerously divide Republican strength in the winner-take-all contest, while the only announced Democrat would be assured of garnering all of her party’s votes.

“Well, I should run,” joked Laurie Campbell, who surprised the heavily Republican gathering by announcing that she was a registered Democrat.

Campbell said later that the remark was not lost on Baugh, 33, a newcomer to the political scene himself. But Baugh was more concerned with cementing his own candidacy than he was in the number of Democratic challengers.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), who was spearheading GOP efforts to recall Doris Allen, the 67th District’s Republican incumbent, had told Baugh in July that he had to raise $100,000 in little more than a month to prove himself a serious candidate.

Enlisting Campbell to run as a spoiler was of some interest to Baugh. But getting a $1,000 campaign contribution from Laurie and husband Kendrick was more to the point.

That $1,000 donation, and the last-minute scramble to put Campbell on the November ballot, have already resulted in three criminal convictions--one involving a staff aide to Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove)--and now threaten to put Baugh and Rohrabacher’s campaign manager behind bars.

The story of Baugh’s high-stakes bid to get elected, and of the extraordinary actions taken to undermine the chances of Democrat Linda Moulton-Patterson with a decoy candidate, is spelled out in a remarkable 65-page affidavit from Orange County district attorney’s investigators and three other sworn statements from GOP staffers who have pleaded guilty either to illegally gathering signatures for Campbell or falsely making a nomination paper on her behalf.

The documents, all filed in Orange County Superior Court in the past several weeks, portray the days leading up to the signature-gathering deadline as harried, confused and comical.

What follows is that story, as related by those convicted staffers and by district attorney’s investigators, who paraded more than 30 witnesses before the grand jury that on Friday indicted Baugh, his chief of staff, Maureen Werft, and Rohrabacher’s campaign manager, Rhonda Carmony. All are facing possible prison terms, ranging from 44 months to seven years.

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With the filing deadline for candidates to succeed ex-Speaker Allen fast approaching, some Republican leaders were worried about the possibility that Moulton-Patterson, a Democrat, could end up with the greatest number of votes and win in the heavily Republican district, because there were going to be four Republicans on the ballot.

Party leaders who had meetings around this time to talk about the candidates included Pringle (now Assembly speaker), Senate Minority Leader Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove) and Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange).

Against this background, Baugh made a Sept. 19 telephone call to Laurie Campbell, whom he had first met nine years earlier when the two, still in their 20s, were working at the same Sacramento law firm.

Was she serious during their Labor Day weekend chat, when she spoke of her willingness to run in the 67th District race? Campbell recalled Baugh asking her. Her antiabortion stance would be in stark contrast to that of Moulton-Patterson, an abortion rights advocate, and could siphon off the conservative Democratic vote.

When she agreed that she would, Baugh told her that time was short and to expect a call from Rohrabacher aide Carmony, who was active in the campaign to oust Allen. Allen had enraged many GOP leaders by getting herself elected speaker last year on the strength of her own vote and those of 39 Assembly Democrats.

Instead of Carmony, the call came from Richard Martin, a paid Baugh campaign staffer who instructed her to go to the registrar of voters office to get the petition forms and other papers she would need to file her candidacy.

Martin called again that same day to explain that she would have to gather the signatures of 40 registered voters on her candidacy petitions.

But Campbell said she was too busy with her work to gather signatures, so Martin picked up the forms on filing day and delivered them to Rohrabacher’s campaign office, where he gave them to Carmony.

Carmony, according to court documents, was the ringleader of the effort to put Campbell on the ballot, and supposedly had the “blessing” of Pringle to go forward with the scheme, Campbell recalled Baugh telling her.

With time running out and only a few hours left, things began to get frantic.

Carmony told Martin to begin circulating petitions and dispatched him to a neighborhood in Huntington Beach, near Brookhurst Street and Atlanta Avenue, where many Democrats were registered.

Carmony gave other petition forms to another Rohrabacher aide and instructed him to deliver them to Pringle’s chief of staff, Jeff Flint, at Pringle’s campaign office. Once delivered, the petition forms found their way into the hands of Mark Denny, another Pringle staffer, and Jeff Gibson, a paid worker in the Doris Allen Recall Campaign.

Gibson had been having a horrible day. For weeks, he had been talking to Flint about the problem of too many Republicans running in the 67th. He had just arrived at Pringle campaign headquarters in Garden Grove around 3 p.m. that day, just as Flint was angrily hanging up the phone on Carmony.

Flint bolted out the door, saying “I’m out of here,” Denny quoted him as saying.

Carmony called right back, and Denny quoted her as saying, “We are trying to get Laurie Campbell on the ballot.” When Denny asked who Campbell was, Carmony said Campbell was “a Democrat that we are trying to get to run.”

According to both Denny and Gibson, Carmony desperately needed help gathering signatures and the deadline was less than two hours away.

“Carmony had more or less volunteered Denny and me to assist in the circulation of Campbell nomination petitions,” Gibson said in the affidavit. “Carmony made it clear that without our help, Campbell would not get on the ballot.”

Denny grabbed a computerized printout of registered Democrats in the 67th District, pens and a precinct map, while waiting for Jeff Butler, a paid aide in the Allen recall campaign, to arrive with the petitions. The three petition circulators, as well as Carmony and Campbell, would converge on the registrar of voters office at 4 p.m. on deadline day, leaving little time to spare.

Gibson, meanwhile, had noticed problems with five of the partially completed petitions he had been given. Where voters from the same family didn’t feel like filling in the same address on forms, ditto marks were inserted. That wouldn’t fly. Gibson said he called Carmony, who said she’d take care of it.

Gibson and Denny gathered signatures door-to-door in a Garden Grove neighborhood around Belgrave Avenue from 3:45 to 4:15 p.m. After gathering 10 signatures, the two drove to the registrar’s office to meet Campbell and Carmony.

Martin and Campbell were the first to arrive at the appointed hour of 4 p.m.--one hour before the office would close. Martin began making calls on Campbell’s cellular telephone. Martin’s beeper buzzed incessantly. They both watched from the car as Moulton-Patterson arrived to file her candidacy papers.

At 4:30 p.m., a pickup truck and another car arrived and parked on either side of Campbell’s gold Saturn. Gibson and Carmony had arrived. Carmony tumbled into the back seat. Gibson took the front passenger seat, alongside Campbell, and told Martin, whom he did not get along with at all, to “get the hell out of here.”

By 4:50 p.m.--10 minutes before the deadline--they all had arrived in the registrar’s parking lot.

There, sitting in her car with Gibson and Carmony, Campbell completed the petitions, signing as their circulator and swearing she had gathered all the signatures, Gibson said. Campbell said Carmony and Gibson filled in the addresses that had been missing. But Gibson said Carmony alone wrote over the ditto marks, remarking, “See, Jeff, it’s not a big deal.”

“Gibson and Carmony told Campbell what information to write down on the petitions,” according to the affidavit filed in court. “Campbell said she did not read the Affidavit of Circulator before signing them.”

According to Gibson, “Carmony looked through the petitions and handed them one at a time to Campbell to be signed. Campbell asked where she should sign and Carmony answered. This happened at least twice.”

Three minutes before 5 p.m., Campbell went inside to file as a Democratic candidate in the 67th Assembly race. She said Carmony and Gibson walked in just before she did, so they would not be seen together.

At the counter, Campbell turned in the petitions, which had been signed by 43 Democratic voters.

Denny was already inside, having dropped Gibson off outside with the others. He told district attorney’s investigators that he saw a woman he did not recognize.

“I then walked to the counter to find out who was filing at the last minute and, by reading her paperwork, found out it was Laurie Campbell,” for whom he had just spent hours gathering petitions.

Throughout the day of Sept. 21, the young staffers involved in Campbell’s short-lived candidacy--accustomed to working in makeshift, grimy election surroundings--reveled in the expensive toys of the communications age, using cellular telephones and pagers with abandon. Their calls would later provide an electronic trail of evidence.

More than 50 calls of interest to prosecutors were made that day, but the lion’s share came between the frantic witching hour of 4 to 5 p.m., just as the deadline approached. Some 30 calls were made in those 60 minutes, as Carmony’s cell phone was used to page Martin, contact Baugh field representative Jeff Nielsen, call Baugh’s campaign consultant Dave Gilliard, and telephone the campaign offices of Rohrabacher and Pringle.

Shortly after the 5 p.m. filing deadline, Carmony’s phone was used to call the district offices of both Pringle and Lewis, as well as Baugh’s home. Flint’s cellular phone was used to call the California Business PAC, whose executive director told investigators that she had been interested in recruiting a Democrat to run in the 67th, but was not involved in the Campbell matter.

At the deadline, Campbell paid the $699.36 filing fee.

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Campbell’s candidacy posed a new problem for Baugh, one that ultimately got him indicted.

Having a $1,000 campaign contribution from the Campbells appear on the finance reports he was required by law to file apparently did not appeal to Baugh, prosecutors allege. According to the grand jury, Baugh’s first solution to the problem was to conceal the donation and not report it on two separate campaign reports in October and November. Later, he would account for the money as a loan from himself, and only on election day--just hours before the polls closed--did he file an amended campaign finance report correctly stating the donation’s source.

Prosecutors filed several felony and misdemeanor charges against Baugh accusing him of violating campaign finance laws.

In one of those attempts to cover up the transaction, Baugh returned the $1,000--in cash--to Campbell’s husband, Kendrick, who gave $700 of the money to his wife to reimburse her filing fees, according to the investigators’ affidavit.

As Democrats petitioned the courts last year to remove Campbell from the November ballot, Campbell said she conferred with Baugh about her legal problems. She said Baugh told her that “they” would make sure her attorneys fees were paid and if not, he would personally take care of them. Campbell told investigators her legal fees were paid by someone else, whom she did not name. She also said the attorneys were provided by Gilliard, Baugh’s campaign consultant.

Pringle told investigators that he may have interceded to get her legal help.

“Campbell said Baugh told her it was Curt Pringle’s people who [were] behind this nomination paper incident,” the search warrant affidavit says. “Baugh told Campbell that Dana Rohrabacher is ‘really ticked’ at Pringle’s office for allowing this to happen. Campbell said that Baugh said it is Baugh’s understanding that this whole idea was Carmony’s but she had Pringle’s blessing to go forward with it.”

After The Times broke the news of Campbell being a decoy candidate last October--and quoted Baugh as saying he barely knew her--Campbell called Baugh and confronted him. “I know I lied,” Campbell quoted Baugh as saying. “I choked.”

Baugh’s first brush with district attorney’s investigators was tense when they appeared at his door at 7:40 a.m. on a Saturday 10 days before the November election.

After first inviting investigators into his Huntington Beach home, Baugh changed his mind when they brought up the subject of Campbell.

“Baugh said he had guests in the house and wanted to take a shower before being interviewed,” the investigators wrote. “He asked us to wait outside so we waited on his front porch.”

Twenty minutes later, Baugh came back outside, dressed in the same clothes as before, with no sign he had taken a shower. He said he had a debate scheduled for later in the day and didn’t have time for an interview. After investigators persisted, he agreed to talk for 15 minutes standing outside the front door while people and cars passed by.

Baugh said he didn’t know how closely the district attorney’s office was working with The Times or the Democratic Party and asked if the information would “leak back out.” One of the investigators said they worked for neither organization.

While he acknowledged he knew the Campbells from Mariners Church in Newport Beach, Baugh said suddenly, “But to get to the heart of your question, I didn’t ask [Campbell] to run.”

In the next few minutes, Baugh refuted just about everything Campbell had told investigators: he didn’t know who asked Campbell to get into the race; he wasn’t sure of her motivation, although he believed it stemmed from her opposition to abortion; he didn’t know who circulated the petitions; and he never discussed petition-gathering with her.

Baugh told investigators that his campaign had been put together rapidly, after Rohrabacher approached him last August to consider running. When Baugh was asked if Campbell supported him before she announced her own candidacy, Baugh cut the interview off, saying the 15 minutes were up.

After calling him throughout the weekend and Monday, without success, investigators finally heard back from Baugh a week before the special election.

“You guys beat the s--- out of my front door, 7:30 on Saturday morning and woke my whole household up! You called my house twice on Sunday. I want you guys to quit harassing me. Quit calling me at home or we’ll file a civil rights action against you!”

Baugh hired a lawyer and refused to cooperate further.

When the dust settled Friday, Baugh had been indicted by the Orange County Grand Jury on four felony counts, including falsifying campaign reports and persuading another person to commit perjury. He also was charged with 18 misdemeanors for allegedly concealing the source of campaign money. He faces up to seven years in state prison on the felony charges.

Baugh on Saturday did not answer questions about the indictment, but he has accused the district attorney of grandstanding.

Carmony was indicted for fraudulently making and filing nomination papers for Campbell, and being part of a conspiracy to file false nomination papers. She faces up to three years and eight months in prison.

Baugh’s chief of staff, Maureen Werft, was indicted on two felony counts of perjury and fraudulently voting in last November’s election to recall Allen and elect Baugh. She faces up to four years, eight months in prison.

Carmony and Werft declined to comment; they and Baugh will be arraigned April 22.

Three other GOP operatives--Gibson, 24, who managed the campaign to recall Allen; Denny, a 27-year-old former staff aide to Pringle; and Martin, a 26-year-old Baugh campaign worker--have all pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to fraudulently gather voter signatures on petitions to put Campbell on the ballot.

Rohrabacher said Saturday he knew something about a plan to get a Democrat in the race but advised Carmony against it. But he said he had nothing to do with the scheme and was away in Bosnia at the time it was being developed.

Pringle has told investigators that he confronted Denny and Flint about the plan to recruit Campbell after he read about it in the newspapers. He reprimanded Denny, who resigned from Pringle’s office. Flint said he did not circulate Campbell’s nomination petitions. Pringle said he was in no way involved in the plan to recruit Campbell. Prosecutors declined to discuss her status and she has not spoken to reporters.

Times staff writers Peter M. Warren, Dexter Filkins and Michael G. Wagner contributed to this report.

* KNEW OF PLAN

Rohrabacher says he discouraged scheme to sway vote. A36