Capizzi Denounces Backers of GOP Resolution

Calling it “shameful and disgraceful,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi lashed out Monday at “a small cadre of people” who pushed through a resolution at the state Republican convention over the weekend urging him to quit as the county’s top prosecutor.

The resolution is the latest chapter in the war of words between Capizzi and GOP conservatives from Orange County angry over his prosecution of Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) and several aides on charges of campaign wrongdoing.

“It’s unfortunate that they engineered this,” Capizzi said. “I think it’s shameful and disgraceful that they drew the Republican Party into their agenda.”

The measure was pushed by backers of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), a mentor of Baugh and one of Capizzi’s harshest critics. Among those indicted in the case is Rohrabacher’s fiancee, GOP activist Rhonda Carmony.

“Mr. Capizzi is in denial,” said Jim Righeimer, Rohrabacher’s campaign chairman. “More than 1,000 Republicans voted on that resolution, and not one person went to the microphone to defend him. Not one. Nice try, Mike.”

Righeimer said Capizzi has “abused his power” in his pursuit of Baugh and the rest. Orange County conservatives are particularly galled that Capizzi went after Baugh’s former chief of staff, Maureen Werft. She pleaded guilty in December to one misdemeanor count of voting illegally. Righeimer said Werft racked up huge attorney bills before settling the case.

“Mike Capizzi will destroy a life and not think twice about it,” said Righeimer, who also complained about treatment he received by the district attorney’s staff when he was called before the Orange County Grand Jury to be queried on the case. “The man is out of control, and there is no oversight of him. He needs to hear a message from somebody that it’s not OK anymore to behave this way.”

The resolution originally called on Capizzi, who is exploring a run for state attorney general, to bow out of that contest as well as quit as district attorney. But it was amended to exclude any mention of the attorney general’s race when it went to the floor Sunday for a voice vote by Republican delegates at the semiannual convention.

Capizzi said that the resolution will be politically insignificant and that he will run for attorney general despite the opposition of his party’s conservative wing.

“It doesn’t represent the feelings of 99.9% of those registered Republicans who are honest and law-abiding and expect honest campaigning and elected officials,” he said. “The little cadre of people who pushed this want a puppet, not a prosecutor.”

Capizzi scoffed at allegations by conservatives that he attempted to use the case against Baugh to further his statewide political aspirations.

“I didn’t create the Baugh situation,” he said. “We simply reacted to it, just as we have reacted to similar violations for the past 25 years.”

The district attorney also said his conservative critics “seemingly condone the criminal conduct that gave rise to the charges” filed against Baugh and the others.

“Instead of heeding the message that’s carried by those criminal charges, they want to silence the messenger,” he said.