Pringle Ex-Aide Says He Acted on His Own

Under vigorous cross-examination, a former aide to Garden Grove Assemblyman Curt Pringle insisted Thursday that he never checked with his superiors before taking part in a scheme to place a decoy Democrat on the ballot in a crucial election in 1995.

Mark Denny, the Pringle aide who pleaded guilty last year to his role in the campaign ploy, testified under sharp questioning by the defense that he made an unusual, independent decision to take part in the “potentially embarrassing” scheme even though he knew that if revealed, it would hurt Pringle’s chance of becoming speaker of the California Assembly.

Denny testified that he followed the direction of GOP campaign aide Rhonda Carmony, 27, who is charged in Superior Court with falsely making a nominating petition, falsely filing a nominating petition and conspiring to falsely file a nominating petition. Carmony is the campaign director and fiancee of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach).

The defense maintains Carmony had at most a minimal role in the effort, which they say was orchestrated by Denny’s boss, Jeff Flint, then Pringle’s chief of staff. Pringle was in line to become speaker if voters recalled maverick Republican Doris Allen and replaced her with a loyal Republican.

Prosecutors allege that Carmony persuaded other Republican aides, including Denny and Jeff Gibson, to gather Democratic voters’ signatures for decoy candidate Laurie Campbell, knowing they wouldn’t sign as the petitions’ circulators as required by law. While it is not against the law to recruit a decoy candidate, it is illegal to falsify nominating petitions.

Defense attorney Creighton Laz has tried to show that Gibson and Denny, who both worked for Flint, would have checked with their detail-oriented boss before joining any such plan. All three were in Pringle’s suite of offices in Garden Grove about 3 p.m. on the afternoon of the candidate filing deadline when Carmony spoke to Denny by phone and recruited him. Denny in turn recruited Gibson, his best friend, to help.

Denny testified under questioning from Assistant Dist. Atty. Brent Romney that he felt “this was my opportunity to have an impact on this election . . . and make things happen” and felt that if he had asked Flint’s permission he would have been told “to stay out of it.”

Gibson, who also testified Thursday, said he agreed to assist because “Mr. Denny asked for my help.” Gibson said he did so despite acknowledging that the ploy was “a stupid thing to do.”

After gathering about a dozen signatures together in a west Garden Grove neighborhood, Denny drove with Gibson to the registrar’s office, where they met Carmony and Campbell just before 5 p.m. Gibson testified that he sat in Campbell’s car and watched as Carmony instructed Campbell how to complete the nomination petitions. Campbell signed under penalty of perjury that she had gathered the signatures of the 43 Democrats that actually were collected by Republican campaign and staff workers.

Both Gibson and Denny repeatedly said they could not remember specifics of what happened at the Pringle offices that afternoon. Nor could they remember any details of six short telephone calls made by Denny on his cellular phone to Pringle’s office or Flint’s cellular phone between 3 and 5 p.m. All were captured on telephone records.

Denny testified that the only phone conversations he could remember having prior to the filing deadline were between himself and Carmony, including a second one made while he and Gibson drove to the neighborhood where signatures were gathered. Denny acknowledged that he had the cellular phone with him that afternoon.