Ex-Official to Ask O.C. to Drop Charges

An attorney for former Orange County Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo said he would ask a judge Tuesday to dismiss corruption charges against him and his sister-in-law on grounds that they were wrongly charged as public officials.

Attorney Joseph G. Cavallo said Saturday that Jaramillo and Erica Hill were charged with misappropriation of public funds under a law -- Section 424 of the state penal code -- that is usually applied against county officials who manage public funds.

Jaramillo and Hill are accused of misusing sheriff’s squad cars and on-duty deputies to stage demonstrations on behalf of CHG Safety Technologies, a Mission Viejo company that invented an electronic device to disable a vehicle being pursued by police.

Jaramillo was a paid consultant for CHG during part of the time he was the No. 2 man in the Sheriff’s Department and Hill was the company’s office manager. They were charged in September. Sheriff Michael S. Carona fired Jaramillo in March, and Hill no longer works for CHG.

Court papers filed in the case last month said that by filing the charges under Section 424, prosecutors are required to show that Jaramillo and Hill controlled “public funds or accounts appropriated to their own use.” Cavallo said prosecutors have failed to show that the pair controlled public money or how they benefited from the demonstrations.

The Orange County district attorney’s office responded in a statement Saturday that Hill and Jaramillo illegally used Sheriff’s Department resources controlled by Jaramillo.

“Misappropriation of money is when you have control over some amount of money or resources and use it not to benefit the department, but another entity. You don’t have to benefit from it personally,” said the statement. “Jaramillo had control over these resources, and he ordered them used.”

Cavallo said Saturday that he will press “this and other issues” at Tuesday’s hearing. The statement by the district attorney’s office said prosecutors never asked for an indictment and “purposely allowed the grand jury to expire.”

Jaramillo has been charged with six felony counts of misappropriation of public funds and four misdemeanor conflict-of-interest counts. He faces up to nine years in prison if convicted on all counts. Hill could receive up to six years in prison if convicted of three felony counts of misappropriation of public funds.