Both Sympathy and Scorn for Moreno

People in Santa Ana expressed a mix of sadness and differing degrees of condemnation Tuesday for Ted R. Moreno, the youngest councilman in city history who went from promising populist to convicted felon in two tumultuous terms.

“I’m really disappointed,” said Mario Valencia, a high school friend of Moreno’s who contributed money to the councilman’s legal defense fund earlier this year. “I am just shocked. All in all, he was a great guy. I didn’t want to believe the charges.”

Others weren’t as kind.

“You get what you deserve,” Santa Ana resident Mary Hogan said in front of City Hall. “You have to follow not just man’s laws, but God’s laws.”

Nonetheless, to many, Moreno, 33, was their lone voice in a city hall where officials seem more preoccupied with gentrifying its downtown than the simple needs of working class families--such as youth centers and clean streets, Moreno’s political bread and butter.

“He’s going to be missed a lot,” said Carmen Avila, general manager of California Travel Services on 4th Street. “He was accessible. He was always willing to help. . . . Ted is a human being and human beings make mistakes. And he made a big mistake.”

Moreno was convicted Tuesday on 25 federal counts of corruption stemming from his scheme to illegally fund a slate of candidates in the 1996 council elections. Constantly on the losing end of council votes, Moreno hoped to shift the balance of power.

According to prosecutors, he accepted $31,000 in illegal campaign contributions from a local businessman-turned-FBI-informant.

“It is absolute hypocrisy,” said Raoul Silva, a Santa Ana immigration consultant. “There is not one guy who is a politician who hasn’t done exactly what Ted has done, but they do it through an intermediary. They call them consultants or lobbyists. I know it is wrong, but he wasn’t putting anything in his pocket. . . . They went after a guy who was trying to do a good thing and helping the people. [The money he took] is nothing compared to the kind of money that is flowing into the two presidential campaigns from special interests.”

Some Still See Charges as Political Payback

Although they all condemned Moreno’s illegal actions, many interviewed Tuesday held even higher contempt for the government’s case, calling it a political payback for Moreno’s outspoken attacks on the local establishment, such as the police union, often criticized by Moreno on matters such as salaries and pension benefits.

“He shook the system,” said Raymond Rangel, owner of R&R; Sportswear on Fourth Street. The FBI “put the money in front of him and pushed it and he took it. It is unfortunate that he did. I feel sorry for him and his family.”

Federal prosecutors have denied that Moreno was unfairly targeted. Assistant U.S. Atty. John Hueston said Moreno’s case goes beyond simple lobbying.

“The difference is they made an agreement of action in exchange for the money,” Hueston said Tuesday of Moreno and three accomplices who pleaded guilty before the trial.

Moreno was automatically suspended from the City Council following the verdict. He will be barred from using his City Hall office, serving at council meetings or collecting compensation, City Manager David N. Ream said. Unless he resigns, he will be officially removed from office once he is sentenced. Moreno’s seat will remain vacant until the November election.

“I believe his heart was in the right place. He dearly loved the community,” said Amid David, president of community activist group Los Amigos of Orange County and who has dealt with Moreno on a number of occasions.

“I am just sorry about the way he went about trying to accomplish what he wanted to do. Our community deserves all the purity that we can muster.” Some worried about the impact of Moreno’s conviction on other Latino politicians, but others predicted it would have little effect.

“Ted was not so much a Latino politician as he was a politician who was a Latino,” said Jose Fernandez, president of Nuestro Pueblo of Santa Ana, a community group.

“It kind of sheds a bad light on us,” said Fernandez, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1996. “You can’t put us all under the same umbrella. We [Latino politicians] have similar issues, but we don’t always share the same values.”