GOP Campaign Aide Admits to Misconduct in ’92 Election

A Republican campaign aide on trial for alleged political misconduct in a controversial 1995 special election pleaded guilty Wednesday to a single misdemeanor in another case involving a 1992 Diamond Bar City Council race.

Rhonda Carmony, 26, was sentenced to three years of informal probation and ordered to pay fines totaling $13,500. She admitted that she failed to file a required statement of organization with elections officials for the Southern California Taxpayers Committee, which was used to fund a so-called “hit mailer” against Diamond Bar council candidate Phyllis Papen.

Six other misdemeanor counts against Carmony in the same case were dismissed by Municipal Judge Marjorie Laird Carter.

“We would have preferred to have the case completely dismissed but sometimes you have to compromise,” said Carmony’s defense attorney, Creighton Barber Laz. “I think it shows a significant weakness in their case when the D.A. dismisses six out of seven charges.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. John S. Anderson said Carmony’s conduct in the 1992 race is germane to her Dec. 1 retrial on three felony charges from the 1995 race. She is accused of filing false paperwork to help qualify a spoiler Democratic candidate for the winner-take-all ballot to boost the chances of the eventual winner, Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach).

In Carmony’s first trial earlier this year, Laz claimed she was a lower-level campaign worker in 1995 and that others masterminded the decoy scheme. The jury deadlocked in favor of conviction.

Anderson said Wednesday that Carmony was a “thoroughly experienced political worker” with involvement in multiple campaigns and that she concealed who was involved with the 1992 committee by having her cousin’s name listed as treasurer.

When the cousin told her he had been contacted by election officials about his failure to file required reports, Carmony told him not to cooperate and “burn the checkbook,” according to a court brief filed by Anderson.

Laz accused Anderson of “significant factual distortions” in the brief. He said Carmony formed the committee at the request of political consultant Mark Thompson and had “no idea” that it would be used to fund a hit mailer. Thompson was fined $6,000 by state officials for his involvement.

“It’s purely and simply a paperwork violation,” said Laz, who argued that the 1992 case has no bearing on the 1995 allegations. “There is no unsavory aspect to it at all.”

Carmony has had the support throughout the trial of leading county GOP conservatives, including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), whom she married in August.

In a different courtroom Wednesday, Baugh was in the midst of a preliminary hearing to determine if he will face trial on separate allegations that he failed to properly account for campaign cash during the 1995 race. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The 1995 election was crucial to Republican control of the Assembly. Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress) was being recalled because she had angered GOP conservatives by becoming speaker with Democratic votes. The recall campaign was run first by Rohrabacher and eventually taken over by Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), who later became speaker with Baugh’s vote.

In court-ordered probation conditions imposed Wednesday, Carmony is forbidden from being a candidate or a lobbyist for four years and cannot be an officer or treasurer of a political action committee. She also was ordered to file all required reports for the Southern California Taxpayers Committee.

Laz said the conditions don’t preclude Carmony from continuing in her role as Rohrabacher’s campaign manager.