Perjury Allegations Against Baugh Detailed at Preliminary Hearing

Prosecutors presented testimony Monday that the campaign for Assemblyman Scott Baugh received and returned a $1,000 contribution from decoy candidate Laurie Campbell and failed to report it on several election disclosure documents during his campaign in 1995.

The testimony came on the second day of a preliminary hearing in Municipal Court to determine if Baugh should stand trial on charges that he lied repeatedly on campaign and officeholder financial disclosure documents relating to that campaign.

Baugh is charged with five felony perjury counts and 13 misdemeanor violations of the Campaign Reform Act for allegedly falsifying five forms.

Campbell and her husband, Rick Campbell--both longtime friends of Baugh’s--are expected to testify today.

Prosecutors allege Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) publicly hid his friendship with the Campbells and the $1,000 contribution until the campaign was over so he would not be linked to a GOP scheme to split the Democratic vote by placing Democrat Laurie Campbell on the ballot.

“Had Mr. Baugh disclosed that he had received $1,000 from the decoy Democrat and given back her contribution after encouraging her to run, he may very well have lost the election,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Brent Romney said. “It is the concealing of the truth from the voters that makes this case so serious, because someone else could have won the election if voters knew the truth. Baugh knew that.”

Both Baugh’s lawyer Allan Stokke and his close advisor Jim Righeimer took issue with that in court.

Righeimer testified that the issue of a Campbell connection to Baugh was a “nonissue” to voters. Stokke said there is no evidence that Baugh wanted Campbell on the ballot or that his being linked to her would have cost him votes.

“You can’t know if it would have changed a single vote,” Stokke said.

Baugh has maintained that he broke no law and that the errors on his disclosure forms were due to mistakes or bad advice by his then-campaign treasurer, Dan Traxler. Traxler gave declaration last week in which he accepted blame for most of the reporting problems.

In other testimony, Adel Zeidan said that he gave Baugh $10,000 for his campaign, including $8,800 in cash in an envelope. Cash donations and expenditures above $100 are illegal in campaigns.

“He is like a brother to me,” said Zeidan, explaining the contribution and adding that Baugh had done $30,000 to $40,000 of legal work for him free of charge.

In addition to the charges stemming from the Campbell contribution, prosecutors allege that Baugh deliberately misreported the dates he paid back $27,000 in loans to inflate the balance in his campaign account and win the endorsement of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach).

Righeimer, campaign chairman for Rohrabacher, testified that Baugh already had Rohrabacher’s endorsement on the day the loans were made.