Ex-sheriff’s official gets year in jail

A former Orange County assistant sheriff who promised he would be vindicated in a corruption case agreed Monday to serve a year in jail for lying to a grand jury and misusing a county helicopter, abruptly ending a legal drama that destroyed friendships among Orange County’s most powerful figures.

George Jaramillo, 46, looked relieved as he pleaded no contest to one felony count each of perjury and misuse of public funds in exchange for having nine other charges dropped -- including four bribery counts. As part of the plea deal, Jaramillo will be on probation for three years and serve one of those years in a city jail. He is scheduled to begin serving his term in April.

Jaramillo, who could have gotten 13 years in prison, said afterward that it was time to put the case behind him. The long fight has been expensive and has taken a toll on his family. The plea, he said, will allow him to go forward “without destruction to my life.”

“This is not a day of celebration.... It’s about moving on with my life,” he said outside the courtroom. “This would have been a never-ending battle.... It was time to make this thing go away.”

The agreement came on the heels of a raid last weekend by investigators at Jaramillo’s home and the home of one of his relatives, looking for evidence that he had forged a document related to his trial.

Search warrants were obtained after Jaramillo’s defense team recently turned over documents that purportedly showed that his wife, Lisa, received $10,000 for work she performed for a Newport Beach company that paid Jaramillo as a consultant. Prosecutors had ink experts analyze the documents and suspected they were fraudulent.

Computer equipment was seized from Jaramillo’s home and his sister-in-law’s, who at one time was a defendant in the case, prosecutors said. If the documents were fake, Jaramillo and his wife could have faced charges.

As part of the deal, no such investigation will be pursued, but Jaramillo must pay $10,000 in restitution.

Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said he didn’t know what role, if any, those documents played in the plea deal.

The agreement was reached after several lengthy closed-door sessions in the chambers of Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel, who according to both sides encouraged them to settle the case. Rackauckas said it was Fasel who recommended that a year in jail was fair punishment, and prosecutors agreed.

The district attorney said it was a “sad chapter in Orange County,” noting that Jaramillo becomes the highest-ranking law enforcement official here to be convicted of a felony.

Jaramillo was once considered a successor to Sheriff Michael S. Carona, serving as his top assistant and confidant after running his first two campaigns. In March 2004, Carona fired him for reasons he never explained.

Months later, Jaramillo was charged with misusing public funds and conflict of interest for allegedly working as a paid consultant for CHG Safety Technologies Inc., a Newport Beach company that had designed a high-tech laser device designed to stop cars fleeing police. Jaramillo helped stage demonstrations of the invention with sheriff’s deputies.

In 2005, prosecutors changed strategy in the case and took it to the Orange County Grand Jury, which charged Jaramillo with conspiring with CHG owner Charles H. Gabbard to obstruct justice and taking bribes to help promote the device.

The bribery counts alleged that Jaramillo was paid in 2000 and 2001 with three checks totaling $25,000.

The fourth bribery count alleged that Gabbard gave Jaramillo’s sister-in-law, Erica Hill, a job as a clerical assistant at Jaramillo’s request. Hill was initially arrested and charged with Jaramillo, but prosecutors later dropped the charges.

Last year, the grand jury added new charges against Jaramillo that included perjury and additional counts of misusing public funds.

The perjury count to which Jaramillo pleaded no contest on Monday is based on his testimony to the grand jury that his wife was paid $10,000 as an administrative assistant for CHG. Prosecutors said there was no evidence his wife ever worked for the firm, and alleged that the money was eventually funneled to Jaramillo.

The misuse of county funds relates to his using a sheriff’s helicopter. He and his wife took a flight to his southern Orange County home so she could retrieve her purse and his wallet before they both attended a White House function.

The case was set to go to trial next month. Jaramillo had been denied a request to bar county prosecutors from handling his corruption case because of an assortment of alleged conflicts.

Jaramillo’s attorneys wanted the state attorney general’s office to take over the case, arguing that their client could not be fairly prosecuted by the district attorney’s office because of their client’s once-close relationships with Rackauckas and Carona -- and their political consultant, Michael Schroeder.

christine.hanley@latimes.com