Controversy Dogs Sheriff Aide Anew

As an Orange County grand jury investigates whether he helped cover up the latest run-in with the law by a colleague’s son, Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo finds himself mired in controversy. Again.

Jaramillo, who was given his post after serving as Sheriff Michael S. Carona’s campaign manager five years ago, is the subject of allegations that he and other deputies helped the teenager by concealing details of a drug bust that snared him.

It is not the first time Jaramillo has found himself the subject of criticism.

As a street cop in Garden Grove, he was placed on administrative leave after accusing the department of discrimination. As assistant sheriff, he was forced to reimburse the county after having deputies give him and his wife a helicopter ride to the airport to catch a flight. When President Bush visited Orange County, Jaramillo was threatened with arrest if he didn’t move from a VIP area.

Among many who have worked with him, Jaramillo is known as a gentleman, an endearing personality who has withstood the bumps on a ride to the top. Others see him as divisive and arrogant, a lightning rod for controversy.

“George polarized the department,” recalled Garden Grove City Manager George Tindall. “He split it in two.”

When he was a sergeant in Garden Grove in the late 1990s, Jaramillo accused his bosses of discriminating against female and minority officers. He listed the allegations in a complaint filed with state officials, which polarized the department and created a monumental headache for the city, Tindall said.

Although Jaramillo never sued, city officials worked out a settlement after commissioning a study of discrimination in the department and filing the report without making it public. He was promoted to lieutenant and then placed him on administrative leave for nine months before resigning in July 1998 after 14 years as a Garden Grove cop.

While on paid leave during the dispute, Jaramillo managed Carona’s first political campaign, a bare-knuckled fight that alienated the deputies Carona would later lead. The rank and file had backed Carona’s opponent, Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters.

The alliance with Carona was fruitful. After he was elected, Carona asked the Board of Supervisors in the fall of 1998 to change the requirements for being an assistant sheriff to accommodate his campaign manager. Previously, assistant sheriffs had to have at least two years’ experience as captains in the department.

Standoff on Decorum

In August 2002, Jaramillo angered and disappointed some in law enforcement after he, his wife, Carona’s wife and the Caronas’ son were invited to the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana to listen to President Bush.

A dispute arose between Jaramillo and Santa Ana officials, who asked him and his group to leave a roped-off area where Bush would be shaking hands after the speech. Jaramillo refused to budge.

Laguna Beach Police Chief Jim Spreine, who witnessed the incident and had earlier been asked to leave the same area, said Jaramillo “sincerely believed he and his group” were supposed to be there.

After repeated attempts by a plainclothes officer and city officials to get Jaramillo to move, Santa Ana Police Chief Walters was summoned. Spreine said Walters tried reasoning with Jaramillo.

Jaramillo asked whether Walters would have him arrested if he did not move, said Spreine. Walters said he would.

“At that point I reminded George that we were all in uniform and the whole scene was embarrassing. It didn’t look good for uniformed chiefs to be haggling over who should be in the roped-off area,” Spreine said. “I asked George to please leave, and he did. That whole incident should’ve never happened.”

Jaramillo ruffled feathers again last December with the helicopter flight he took with his wife from Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center to Long Beach Airport. Jaramillo had been invited to a White House function and had stopped to visit his mother at the hospital when he summoned the sheriff’s chopper.

The incident was magnified because the helicopter had to return to south Orange County and land near Jaramillo’s home to pick up his wife’s purse and his wallet, which had been left behind, then buzz back to the airport before the couple’s flight departed.

Carona ordered Jaramillo to reimburse the county. Sheriff’s spokesman John Fleischmann said Jaramillo paid about $240 for the trip but did not reimburse the county for the cost of the second flight.

Was There Obstruction?

In the current probe, the grand jury is trying to determine whether Jaramillo and other sheriff’s officials obstructed justice by giving preferential treatment to Gregory Haidl, the 18-year-old son of Assistant Sheriff Donald Haidl.

Gregory Haidl and two of his friends are awaiting trial for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl during a July 2002 party in his father’s Corona del Mar home. In October, Haidl and two others were found allegedly with a small amount of marijuana while skateboarding in San Clemente. Had Haidl been arrested or cited on grounds of drug possession, his $100,000 bail could have been revoked.

That night, in a conversation that was tape recorded, a sheriff’s lieutenant woke up Jaramillo and alerted him that Haidl and his friends had been caught with marijuana. After a brief discussion, Jaramillo and the lieutenant agreed not to record the incident in the activity log in hopes that the news media would not learn about the incident. The tape recording is a key part of the grand jury’s investigation.

It was Jaramillo’s second controversy in connection with the Haidls. Months earlier, when the rape investigation was just being launched, Jaramillo drove to Rancho Cucamonga in uniform to advise Gregory Haidl not to speak with investigators. That sparked condemnation by prosecutors and police detectives who were still trying to piece together the case. Newport Beach Police Chief Robert J. McDonell wrote a letter to Carona, complaining that Jaramillo had interfered with the investigation.

Jaramillo, who declined to be interviewed for this article, said earlier that he had intended only to help Donald Haidl and protect his family from media scrutiny.

Carona said Jaramillo has his full confidence.

“If I had no confidence in the man, he would not be in my organization,” Carona said.

Still, Carona said, his department has been tarnished by allegations that Jaramillo interfered on Gregory Haidl’s behalf in the rape case and that Jaramillo and others gave Haidl preferential treatment when the marijuana was allegedly found.

“It’s a source of frustration. I take very seriously my responsibility to lead this organization and examine the issues of credibility,” said Carona. “The way it’s presented in the media clearly raises those issues.”

As the years have passed, Jaramillo has won over some critics.

Bob McLeod, general manager of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, said he has developed a deep respect for Jaramillo, even though association members supported Walters in Carona’s first race.

“We were on opposite sides then, but after the election, George became our biggest supporter in our effort to change the [work] shifts into a modern police schedule,” said McLeod.

Jaramillo also enjoys wide support in the county’s Latino community, even though he is the department’s point man in an effort to train deputies to enforce federal immigration laws. The effort is opposed by most police chiefs in California.

“He’s the guy we go to on issues that affect our community,” said Amin David, a leading Latino activist in Orange County.

“I’ve read the stories about what he’s done for Haidl,” said David. “But that’s who Jaramillo is. He’s loyal to his friends, and that’s not always a bad thing.”