Record Clean, Rubino Asks Aid on Legal Bills

Former county Budget Director Ronald S. Rubino, who pleaded no contest to a charge arising from Orange County’s bankruptcy, has had his criminal record wiped clean and wants taxpayers to reimburse him for about $25,000 he paid his attorney.

The money he is seeking is in addition to $605,000 the county has already paid for Rubino’s legal bills.

Rubino’s request comes about six weeks after his conviction was expunged by the same Los Angeles Superior Court judge who in 1996 found him guilty of violating a public records law.

He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and two years of unsupervised probation.

Rubino’s wife, Sharon Esterley, said the former official served his community service by setting up cots for homeless people at the county’s armory in Santa Ana. He also worked with a Costa Mesa charity, distributing dinners and Christmas gifts to poor people, she said.

Under a plea bargain, Rubino was allowed to petition Judge J. Stephen Czuleger to have his record sealed with a not guilty plea, if he abided by the terms of his sentence.

Esterley said Czuleger granted her husband’s request in late November.

Now that his record is clean, the family is working on repairing Rubino’s reputation, Esterley said.

But first, Rubino and Esterley want the county to reimburse them nearly $25,000 they paid attorneys before the former budget director’s December 1995 indictment.

Esterley said that because the legal bills were the result of Rubino’s employment as budget director, the county should pay.

“We need every penny of it,” Esterley said, adding that Rubino planned to use the money for an accounting and tax preparation business he recently started.

“We hope this will not be a controversial issue,” Esterley said. “We can’t control what our lawyers charge.”

Rubino’s decision in 1996 to plead no contest to a public records law followed his mistrial on charges that he plotted with former Treasurer Robert L. Citron to divert--for the county’s benefit--about $90 million in interest belonging to cities and local agencies.

After a jury deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of acquittal, Rubino’s attorneys and prosecutors struck a deal: Rubino pleaded no contest--the same in criminal court as pleading guilty--to a felony charge, and Czuleger reduced it to a misdemeanor.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Jan Nolan, who prosecuted Rubino, said the former budget director’s decision to have his record expunged was appropriate.

“He pleaded guilty to a crime, his sentenced was finished and he was entitled to have his record expunged,” she said. “But that does not mean that he didn’t participate in what went on in the bankruptcy.”