Capizzi: ‘Justice Will Be Served’ by Rubino Deal

Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi declared the plea bargain struck with former County Budget Director Ronald S. Rubino a “victory for the people of Orange County” and rejected criticism that the agreement represents a stinging defeat for prosecutors.

“If everything remains in place, justice will be served,” Capizzi said in an interview Friday. “This serves to determine accountability and designate responsibility for these problems. I think we have accomplished that.”

Capizzi has come under increasing criticism in recent weeks for his prosecutions of officials on bankruptcy-related charges, especially after a jury deadlocked 9 to 3 last month in favor of acquitting Rubino on two felony counts. On Friday, critics expressed concern over the heavy resources expended on a prosecution that, so far, has produced such indecisive results.

“They’ve spent all this money on these cases, and we have nothing to show for it,” said Carole Walters, head of a county watchdog group, the Committees of Correspondence. “We want justice for the people who caused the bankruptcy. But it looks like it’s the taxpayers who are getting the shaft.”

Capizzi’s critics were equally blunt.

“It’s a totally empty victory for the D.A.,” County Supervisor William G. Steiner, who faces bankruptcy-related charges, said. “The jury and public opinion have really vindicated Ron Rubino. I hope this brings Ron closure and a sense of peace.”

The former county administrator had been prosecuted on two felony counts of diverting nearly $100 million in interest belonging to other public agencies to county treasury, but his trial ended in a hung jury Sept. 13. Rubino had maintained his innocence since his indictment last December.

Rubino’s was the first case stemming from Orange County’s 1994 bankruptcy to go to trial. A civil accusation to remove Steiner and Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton and Auditor-Controller Steve E. Lewis from office are pending. Also pending is a January trial against former Assistant Treasurer Matthew Raabe.

On Thursday, Rubino, 44, notified the Board of Supervisors that Capizzi had agreed to a plea bargain that calls for dropping the felony counts in exchange for Rubino’s plea of no contest to a single misdemeanor count of altering or falsifying a public record. But in the letter to the supervisors, Rubino said he is innocent of that charge too.

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Under the proposed plea arrangement, Rubino will plead no contest to the misdemeanor count in a court appearance on Monday. He will receive no jail time but is expected to be sentenced to 100 hours of community service and two years of unsupervised probation.

After one year, Rubino can change his plea to not guilty, and the misdemeanor charge against him can be dismissed.

Rubino and his attorney, Rodney Perlman, declined to comment Friday. Rubino’s wife, Sharon Esterley, also declined to comment except to say that “if the prosecution had some evidence, it may have gone a little better for them.” But, she added, “there was never anything there.”

Raabe, the former county assistant treasurer, will be tried in January on six felony counts of securities fraud and misappropriation of public funds. His attorney, Richard Schwartzberg, declined to speculate on what effect, if any, Rubino’s plea arrangement will have on his client’s case.

However, Schwartzberg did say that prosecutors probably agreed to the plea bargain because “they were afraid they couldn’t get a conviction of any kind” at a second trial. Schwartzberg called Rubino’s no-contest plea “basically, a plea to nothing.”

Several of Rubino’s friends and some jurors from his trial responded by saying, “I told you so,” on Friday.

“Speaking as a taxpayer, the trial was such a waste of money,” said Gloria Sullivan, a pension fund manager and Rubino friend. “They tried a man who wasn’t guilty. To retry him would have been an even bigger waste of public money.”

Capizzi strongly rejected those and other charges made by critics. “We feel that we represent the people of Orange County, not just the friends of Ron Rubino,” he said. “One of the goals was to delve into the hows and whys of the bankruptcy, and I feel we’ve thoroughly done that.”

Capizzi said his office agreed to the plea bargain in part because prosecutors weren’t sure whether Raabe would be willing testify against Rubino.

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While the former budget director will serve no jail time under the plea, Capizzi said: “Ron Rubino is not public enemy No. 1. He’s not John Dillinger. I’m not sure what the penalty would have been in any case.”

Had Rubino been convicted of all charges, he would have faced up to nine years in prison.

Capizzi also denied charges made in Rubino’s letter to supervisors that the prosecution was “malicious and unfounded.” Capizzi pointed out that Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger refused to end the trial after prosecutors presented their case, indicating that there was enough evidence for the jury to consider.

Prosecutors had charged Rubino, Raabe and former Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron of plotting in 1993 to skim interest earnings from the county investment pool because they were worried that investors might be startled by the pool’s excessive earnings and begin asking questions about the high risks Citron was taking to achieve such returns.

Citron, who has pleaded guilty to six felony counts of misappropriation and fraud, is awaiting sentencing.

After the deadlock in Rubino’s trial, several jurors wrote letters to Capizzi urging him not to retry Rubino. Two jurors also attended a Board of Supervisors meeting last month, saying they believed Rubino was innocent and that supervisors should provide additional defense funds for a retrial.

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The supervisors had already approved $500,000 in county funds for Rubino’s defense, because he was a county employee at the time of his alleged offense. Before the plea bargain was reached, the board was considering giving Rubino an additional $355,000 for the retrial.

Juror Lisa Jeanne Barnes, one of the jurors who attended last month’s supervisors meeting, expressed relief at the plea agreement.

“I’m happy for” Rubino, Barnes said Friday. “Hopefully, he will be able to put this past him and move on with his life.”

Barnes said prosecutors didn’t prove their case and that it would be “a big waste of time and money” to retry Rubino.

Juror Frances K. Alsborg wrote a letter to Capizzi after the trial asking him not to retry Rubino, because she felt Rubino is a “good person who didn’t get a fair deal” during the trial.

“Even though I would have preferred a total acquittal, it at least resolves things,” Alsborg said Friday.

Steiner said he would have preferred that Rubino’s case be dropped but said he understood the need for a plea arrangement.

“I think it was a bitter pill for Ron and Sharon to swallow. Yet I appreciate the fact that they have to get on with their lives,” Steiner said. “The [prosecutors] put their backs against the wall. They didn’t want to live with the uncertainty of not knowing when they would find themselves back in court.”