Rival Says Carona Should Quit Over the Company He Keeps

A rival of Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona on Thursday called for his immediate resignation, saying he was outraged by published photographs that showed the sheriff fraternizing with the owner of a Las Vegas strip club that federal authorities had referred to as a racketeering enterprise.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Ralph Martin, one of three candidates hoping to unseat Carona in this year’s election, said he was also disturbed that the sheriff had deputized the owner of a Vegas restaurant that boasts it is a hangout for “businessmen in the casino industry with Italian surnames.”

Martin, holding his first news conference since entering the race, said that Carona had disgraced his office by posing for the pictures in uniform and for swearing in some reserve deputies who were unfit to carry a badge.

“The reserve program has once again reared its ugly head,” Martin said as he stood in front of the Old County Courthouse in Santa Ana. “This is unacceptable.... This is egregious.”

At the very least, Martin said, Carona should be subjected to an internal affairs investigation.

Carona campaign spokesman Michael J. Schroeder did not return calls to his office and cellphone. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has a policy of not talking to The Times outside of arrests and other breaking news.

The OC Weekly previously reported that Schroeder said the sheriff had no knowledge of the background of the Vegas club owner.

The photographs were published in this week’s edition of the OC Weekly and posted on the alternative newspaper’s website.

In one of the photos, Vegas strip club owner Rick Rizzolo has a drink in one hand and his other arm draped around a uniformed Carona at the upscale Ritz restaurant in Newport Beach.

Another shot also taken at the Ritz shows Carona, again in uniform, apparently swearing in the restaurant’s owner, Fred Glusman, as a professional services reserve deputy.

Glusman carried a badge until he had a run-in with the owner of a Balboa self-service laundry, after which he resigned.

Rizzolo and Glusman each have homes in Newport Beach and are well-known in the Las Vegas entertainment business. Rizzolo runs the Crazy Horse Too, a Vegas strip club; Glusman owns Piero’s Italian Restaurant, a long-established Vegas eatery.

In January 2005, a grand jury in Nevada indicted Robert D’Apice, a shift manager at the Crazy Horse Too, on charges of federal racketeering, tax evasion and making false statements to the grand jury. The indictment did not name Rizzolo as a defendant. It did characterize his club as a racketeering enterprise, alleging that club employees robbed and extorted money from patrons through violence or threats. Since August 2001, the indictment revealed, federal grand juries had investigated the club for links to fraud, prostitution and drug distribution.

Rizzolo contributed the maximum $1,500 to Carona’s campaign last year.

The sheriff’s campaign returned the money after published reports revealed the racketeering investigation.

“I realize the sheriff needs to work with all segments of the community, but this is over the top,” Martin said. “He clearly knows who Ricky Rizzolo is. If he doesn’t, he shouldn’t be Orange County’s top cop.”

Glusman’s Vegas restaurant is a popular gathering spot for celebrities and politicians. Piero’s website notes that it has become a hangout for “businessmen in the casino industry with Italian surnames, the ‘local color’ guys.” It notes that scenes for the mob movie “Casino” were shot at Piero’s.

The Ritz also contributed $1,500 and in May 2005 was the site of a birthday fundraiser for the sheriff.

Glusman resigned as a reserve deputy last year during an internal investigation into allegations that he flashed his badge during a parking lot dispute on the Fourth of July.

Martin also referred to some of the other scandals that have plagued Carona’s reserve program. Among them were the appointments of 86 reserve deputies -- many of them Carona political allies and donors -- who were issued badges and in some cases guns despite lacking full training or background checks.

Last summer, a reserve deputy who was also Carona’s martial arts instructor was arrested after allegedly waving his badge and his gun at a group of golfers he believed were playing too slowly. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

This week, authorities confirmed that a gun owned by an Orange County professional services reserve deputy was found at the Bel-Air mansion of the former European video game executive accused of crashing a rare Ferrari Enzo in Malibu in February. That reserve deputy, Newport Beach businessman Roger A. Davis, is also a member of Carona’s Advisory Committee and was issued a permit to carry a concealed weapon.