S.B. County Wins More Damages

A judge has awarded San Bernardino County a total of $10.6 million in damages against former county officials and contractors who traded bribes and kickbacks for profitable contracts, the county announced Tuesday.

Judge Vincent J. O’Neill Jr. last week officially approved two preliminary judgments in favor of the county, including $1.75 million in punitive damages against former County Administrative Officer James Hlawek, his predecessor Harry Mays and former landfill executive Kenneth James Walsh.

Hlawek, Mays and Walsh were central figures in a mid-1990s corruption scandal. A former county supervisor, Gerald “Jerry” Eaves, was convicted of a felony conspiracy charge. Mays and Walsh served time in prison and Hlawek pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges.

“The goal was to make sure none of the defendants profited from their misconduct. It’s a just result,” said Leonard Gumport, a Los Angeles attorney who acted as the county’s co-counsel.

Gumport and Michael Sachs, the county’s chief deputy counsel, successfully argued during the civil trial that the defendants should pay the county profits they made from tainted deals.

“We went after them and said, ‘You hurt us and you’re going to pay for that,’ ” said Supervisor Dennis Hansberger.

Hansberger said that scandal and a series of others involving county officials tainted the county’s image as badly as the Watergate scandal blackened the Nixon presidency.

The attorney for Mays and Walsh said he would appeal because the county had no right to ask for his clients’ profits.

“The county is getting money it did not pay,” said Randall Waier, a Newport Beach lawyer. “They’re trying to carve out a remedy that doesn’t exist.”

The county has been awarded $35 million in its two scandal-related civil suits.

The corruption saga began in 1999 with a criminal indictment of several high-ranking officials and contractors -- including Hlawek, Mays and Walsh -- that accused them of illegally influencing county decisions.

The county filed a pair of civil suits the next year -- one naming nearly two dozen current and former county employees and contractors. Most of them eventually paid settlements and criminal restitution totaling $9.7 million.

The trial for the remaining defendants began a year ago in Ventura County Superior Court, where it was moved in part because of pretrial publicity in San Bernardino County.

The civil trial’s first phase resulted in a judge tentatively awarding the county a total of $9 million. The second phase resulted in a $450,000 settlement and the judgment for punitive damages.

The county won the following:

* $4.2 million combined from Walsh, Hlawek and Mays and his company, Bio-Reclamation Technologies Inc.

* $3.8 million from Hlawek and Oakridge Group Corp., a billboard company whose executive is accused of brokering backroom deals. The county can also end its contract with Oakridge.

* $1 million from Mays and Bio-Reclamation, $500,000 from Walsh and $250,000 from Hlawek, all for punitive damages.

* $800,000 total from judgments against Mays, Hlawek, Oakridge and consultant Richard Tisdale and his company.