GOP Official Files Charge Against O.C. Democrats

A state Republican Party official filed a complaint Thursday charging the Orange County Democratic Party with failing to report a controversial $10,000 campaign contribution and three other alleged violations of state law.

Irvine attorney Michael J. Schroeder, the state GOP vice chair, said the Democrats tried to conceal the contribution, which he maintained should have been made public before the March 26 primary. The money financed a mailer distributed the weekend before the primary urging Democrats to vote for congressional candidate Jim Prince and Assembly candidate Lou Correa.

Schroeder, who filed a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission and the Orange County district attorney’s office, names Democratic Party Chairman Jim Toledano and Paul and Debra Lee LaPrade of Paradise Valley, Ariz. Debra Lee LaPrade is Prince’s sister, and she and her husband made the donation to the county Democrats.

By law, a financial disclosure report should have been filed within 24 hours after the party received the donation, Schroeder said.

“The county Democratic Party and Mr. Toledano have been involved in money laundering in order to conceal the source of a political contribution,” Schroeder said. “They deliberately ran contributions through Prince’s Arizona relatives in order to conceal that this was an illegal contribution because it was over their [campaign spending] limits.”

The law limits the amount of contributions a supporter can make to a campaign.

Toledano, an Irvine attorney who lives in Costa Mesa, said Thursday that he did not know LaPrade was Prince’s sister when she made the donation. He called the charges “a feeble complaint” coming weeks after the primary.

“These are desperate charges . . . an attempt to muddy things up,” Toledano said. “Our lawyers don’t see any violation at all.”

Toledano added that the Orange County district attorney and state commission have no jurisdiction in this matter because Correa, as a candidate for state office, was only a small benefactor in the mailer, “less than 10%.”

The LaPrades could not be reached for comment.

This is the same contribution that nearly cost Toledano his party post because he did not reveal it to other Democrats or get their approval to spend the money on a mailer. Although a majority of the members of the county’s Democratic Central Committee voted to oust him on Monday, he survived the recall because party bylaws require a two-thirds vote to remove a chairman.

Schroeder also alleges that Toledano failed to register himself as a political committee, which anyone must do who receives a contribution of $1,000 or more for use in a state or local campaign.

He also claims that Toledano, the party and the LaPrades failed to file a preelection campaign financial report that reveals how much cash was on hand. The mailer also failed to include the name and address of the party--the LaPrades--who paid for it, Schroeder alleged.