Turn in the badge

The sheriff of Orange County showed his accustomed swagger when he swore to fight the serious charges against him rather than step down from office. Unfortunately, he also displayed his accustomed habit of putting his interests over those of his office.

Sheriff Michael S. Carona has every right to take on his accusers. The man has been indicted, not convicted. But during his career as the county’s top law enforcer, Carona has been too much about politics and serving himself and too little about effective leadership and serving the public. He should never have been reelected, and he ought to resign.

From the very start, according to the indictment handed down this week, the sheriff conspired to enrich himself and his mistress, trading access to his department for fat financial favors. If these accusations had come out of the blue, tarnishing an otherwise sterling sheriff, they would still form such a cloud over his department that he could scarcely carry on.

But that’s not the kind of sheriff Carona is. Rather, he has been dragging his office through the mud for years, subjecting it and the residents of Orange County to his self-aggrandizement and consistently bad judgment. An early, telling decision was to hire two political allies as top assistants after his first election in 1998, even though neither man met even the basic requirements for the job. The indictment now gives a possible reason why a newly minted sheriff would do such a thing: money and gifts. The two appointees are cooperating with prosecutors in building a case against the sheriff.

There has certainly been plenty to probe. When the son of one of those men was involved in a minor drug case, the sheriff’s office handled him with kid gloves, even giving him a ride home. One of Carona’s captains reached a plea bargain after he was charged with illegally soliciting campaign donations for Carona from deputies. And the sheriff was infamous for his “reserve deputy” program, in which he issued badges, weapons permits and powers of arrest to 86 political friends who lacked the training and background checks mandated by the state.

Yet as egregious as they are, the charges against Carona aren’t nearly the surprise they ought to be. They are part of a pattern of arrogance, and they explain our refusal to endorse Carona in the last election. Alas, voters picked him anyway, and Carona soon gave them reason to regret it. One of his first actions was to move against a top deputy who had run against him. The deputy, Bill Hunt, resigned after Carona demoted him to patrolman.

Carona has had his moments: the quick arrest in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Samantha Runnion; the improvement of conditions at the Orange County Jail. Too bad that his ethical laxity is what the department has become known for, rather than its achievements.

The courts will ultimately decide what Carona deserves. What the county and a department of hardworking deputies deserve is another matter. If Carona has any honest friends left, they should be advising him to leave his scandal-splattered office to someone who can restore confidence both within and outside the department.