Judge Won’t Drop Charges on Rubino

A judge on Friday rejected a demand to drop felony charges against former county Budget Director Ronald Rubino.

Rubino, 44, is charged with two counts of aiding former Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron in a scheme to divert $60 million in interest from a public investment pool to the county’s budget.

Rubino and his attorney, Rodney Perlman, argued Friday that prosecutors improperly withheld evidence favorable to Rubino from the grand jury that charged him. They said the withholding of evidence suggested bias on the part of the prosecution.

Perlman argued that prosecutors failed to reveal sworn statements by Citron exonerating Rubino in the scheme. Perlman also charged that prosecutors did not fully divulge evidence contradicting Rubino’s chief accuser, former assistant Treasurer Matthew Raabe.

Raabe told grand jurors that the diversion scheme was devised by Rubino and Citron in July 1993. But other testimony and documents suggest that the scheme began earlier, in April 1993.

“Mr. Rubino is entitled to a grand jury that has heard all the evidence,” Perlman told Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger.

Prosecutors denied the assertions, saying they told the grand jurors everything the prosecutors knew.

“If we didn’t think we could prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt, we would have kicked the case,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Dunn.

Judge Czuleger agreed, saying Rubino was not treated unfairly.

On Sunday, Rubino’s friends will hold a fund-raiser to help pay the legal bills of the former budget director. The Board of Supervisors has agreed to pay $300,000 for Rubino’s defense, but no more.

In other action, Raabe lost a motion to remove the district attorney’s office from the case. Raabe’s lawyer, Richard L. Schwartzberg, alleged that prosecutor Jan Nolan had failed to divulge that she did not receive a raise due to the problems caused by the bankruptcy.

Schwartzberg also asked Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey to dismiss the charges against his client because, he said, the grand jurors were biased by news about the bankruptcy.

Dickey denied the motions.

The trials of Raabe and Rubino could begin this year.