O.C. Grand Jury to Probe Ex-Assistant Sheriff -- Again

For the second time in a year, the Orange County district attorney’s office is asking a grand jury to hear evidence against a former assistant sheriff who is accused of public corruption.

More than a dozen witnesses have been served subpoenas to testify this week in Santa Ana in the case against George Jaramillo, who was fired last year as an assistant sheriff.

Jaramillo is already facing felony charges for allegedly misusing county resources to stage demonstrations for a company that paid him as a consultant. He is scheduled to be in court next week to determine whether there is enough evidence to order him to stand trial. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on $25,000 bail.

That hearing would be unnecessary, however, if the grand jury issues an indictment, effectively forcing Jaramillo to stand trial on the charges.

The prosecution’s shift in strategy is the latest twist in a case that dates back more than a year and has been another embarrassment for Sheriff Michael S. Carona.

Carona, who is seeking reelection to a third term next year, has abandoned any immediate plan for seeking higher office.

He was first elected in 1998 with the help of Jaramillo, his campaign manager and top confidant. But Carona fired Jaramillo last year.

Another assistant sheriff and political booster, Donald Haidl, resigned last year amid his son’s high-profile gang-rape trial.

Susan Kang Schroeder, a spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, declined to confirm whether prosecutors were going back to the grand jury or whether there was new evidence or new allegations in the Jaramillo case.

But, she said, prosecutors always have the option of asking the grand jury to investigate allegations or issue an indictment. Such hearings are not open to the public.

Jaramillo’s attorney, Joseph G. Cavallo, suggested prosecutors were trying to circumvent a public hearing, which would be presided over by an “honest, impartial, objective and fair judge with enough experience to make the right call” as to whether there was enough evidence for trial.

“I’ve been wrongly charged,” Jaramillo said, “and I was looking forward to having an impartial judge listen to this matter. It appears Tony Rackauckas is trying to take that opportunity away from me. That is as bogus a move as the charges brought against me.”

Jaramillo was arrested last year amid investigations into alleged wrongdoing in the Sheriff’s Department.

A previous grand jury looked into allegations that Jaramillo interfered with the arrests of Haidl’s son, but found no wrongdoing. Later, the district attorney’s office filed a criminal complaint charging Jaramillo with six felony counts of misusing public funds and four misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charges, relying on some of the evidence presented to the grand jury.

Prosecutors allege that from 2000 to 2002, Jaramillo misused deputies, patrol cars and other county resources to stage demonstrations for a computer chip made by CHG Safety Technologies, a Newport Beach company that paid him as a consultant.

The firm was seeking support for legislation that would require its chip, which was designed to disable vehicles in chases, to be installed in every California vehicle.