Must Bankruptcy’s Victims Pay Alleged Culprits’ Bills?
Imagine being charged with a crime so serious it threatened your company’s livelihood. Then, imagine your boss picking up your legal bills, even into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Not gonna happen in the world you and I inhabit.
We’d be left to fend for ourselves, but because our liberty and reputation would be on the line, we’d spend everything we had to get the best lawyer we could. We’d even spend what we didn’t have--like borrowing against the house or our children’s college fund--to stay out of jail. Unless you were immensely wealthy or had the world’s nicest lawyer, you’d be facing a lifetime of crushing debt. Win or lose in court, you pay the piper.
When it comes to the Orange County bankruptcy--where every boneheaded decision seems to spawn at least two more--the public continues to pay through the nose.
Why is it that, no matter what the issue, it’s always a lose-lose proposition for Orange County taxpayers?
And they wonder why we’re cranky.
The Board of Supervisors, never a securely anchored vessel even in the calmest of waters, is listing more than usual these days because of a continuing storm over legal bills for the alleged bankruptcy culprits.
At center stage is former Budget Director Ron Rubino, but only because his bills are the highest so far. Rubino, the longtime director who quit several months before the bankruptcy hit in December 1994, recently announced he would need more than the $300,000 the board gave him in March. The legal defense to fight the two felony counts against him, he said, could run to $1.3 million and, as much as he hated to, he asked the board for another $200,000 this month.
On a 3-2 vote, the board gave him the money. Two of the yes votes came from, surprise, Supervisors Roger Stanton and Bill Steiner, who are each getting (so far) $250,000 to fight the civil charges against them. Auditor Steve Lewis recently got bumped from $250,000 to $300,000, and Stanton and Steiner may need more if their cases proceed.
The board got itself into this box by agreeing to pay the bills in the first place. The argument behind paying them is that the individuals now charged made their decisions on the road to bankruptcy as public officials. Let’s hope they wouldn’t have made that same argument if one of them had been charged with robbing the hot dog vendor outside the courthouse while on a lunch break.
Some have argued that public officials can’t make tough decisions if they fear legal actions against them. I don’t buy that. But even if I did, why not take the contrarian position that public officials would be more inclined to risk illegality if they knew the public would pony up for their legal bills?
New board members Jim Silva and Don Saltarelli, both untainted by pre-bankruptcy decisions, have the big picture on this one. They were the dissenting votes on Rubino’s request, sensing as the other three didn’t that $300,000 is already a lot of money for the county to give someone who left government nine months before the bankruptcy was declared. Supervisor Marian Bergeson has a queasy feeling, too, saying that she won’t go higher than $500,000 for Rubino.
As for Stanton and Steiner, well, what could they say? They had to vote for Rubino’s request, because they may need more themselves later this summer. How could they not vote for Rubino’s increase and then ask for their own later?
Talk about your conflicts of interest.
But that’s what I mean about this bankruptcy. Ultimately, everything is a conflict of interest. The jury that hears any of these cases will be a jury of bankruptcy victims. That’s a tough crowd.
My little essay this morning has nothing to do with whether Rubino or anyone else is guilty as charged. I’ve said before that this prosecution already seems to have outlived its usefulness, but in the bankruptcy theater we all keep paying for the show even though it seems the curtain came down long ago.
In Rubino’s behalf (and, remember, we’re all technically acting in his behalf now), the stakes for him dwarf those for Lewis and the two supervisors. They stand only to lose their jobs. Rubino faces a possible prison term if convicted.
Is there any wonder why he wants the best defense money can buy?
Your money, that is.
Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.
