No Charges to Be Filed in Residency Probes of 2 Supervisorial Candidates

The Orange County district attorney’s office has closed its investigations into the residencies of supervisorial candidates Mark Leyes and Gary D. Copeland, and no charges will be filed.

“We determined there was insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing to justify criminal action,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes said Thursday.

The investigations were based on separate complaints alleging that Leyes and Copeland did not live in the county’s 1st District and therefore did not qualify as candidates to represent it, Ormes said.

Leyes, a Garden Grove councilman, said he owns two homes in the city, one in the 1st District and one in the county’s 2nd District. He and his wife live in the home in the 1st District with a female tenant who is moving out in June, Leyes said.

“It was never an issue in my mind,” Leyes said. “Of course, my opponent tried to make it an issue, but I knew there was never anything to investigate.”

Leyes finished second in the March 26 primary for the supervisorial seat and will face Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith in a runoff in November.

Copeland, who failed to qualify for the runoff, has a home in Santa Ana where his wife and family reside but registered at his Fountain Valley business address, where he often spends the night, he said.

“This has been my domicile, and I’ve been registered here for six years,” he said. The residency question “was never an issue for me, but it did hurt me in the election. It hurt my ability to raise money.”