Anderson plays down Carona ties

In the wake of Orange County’s sheriff resigning to fight federal corruption charges and after embarrassing revelations about jail deputies’ conduct, the man now running the department has pledged to be a reformer who will restore integrity.

But as he seeks approval from county supervisors to complete Michael S. Carona’s term, acting Sheriff Jack Anderson faces a major obstacle: his ties to Carona.

Anderson is a 21-year department veteran promoted by Carona from captain to assistant sheriff, making him part of the former sheriff’s command staff. When Carona resigned in January, he made a series of eleventh-hour personnel moves that enabled Anderson to assume the top job.

The acting sheriff also serves on the Central and Executive Committees of the Orange County Republican Party, a powerful force in local politics, and is close to some of the same political consultants who advised Carona.

Since taking over, Anderson has won praise from supervisors for dealing forcefully with deputies and senior department brass who lied during a grand jury inquiry into the death of a jail inmate.

He launched an aggressive campaign to identify and fix department problems, including asking the FBI to investigate possible civil rights violations. He supported the creation of an office to review civilian complaints against the department and pledged the department’s cooperation in crime-fighting initiatives that his predecessor had resisted.

Supervisor John Moorlach said Anderson was “exceeding expectations.”

Still, he added: “There is sort of a guiding principle that if you need to change a culture, you need to bring in somebody from the outside. It’s very difficult for someone from the inside.”

Nearly 50 candidates applied to replace Carona. They have been winnowed to nine, and supervisors will conduct public interviews of the top prospects May 27 before making a final decision in early June.

Anderson is cognizant of appearances and has been taking steps to distance himself from Carona’s scandal-plagued legacy. He is cooperating in a regional information-sharing network called Coplink and having the department’s DNA crime lab work more closely with a lab run by the district attorney -- two ideas fought by Carona.

He also has moved ahead with several department initiatives that supervisors favor, including the long-stalled James A. Musick Jail expansion and replacing jail deputies with civilian corrections officers. Now Anderson is poised to help the supervisors ease the county’s budget crunch by agreeing to tap a special reserve account for $24 million to cover operating costs.

He has publicly differed with the board on just one matter, its legal crusade to reduce pensions for deputies.

In an interview, Anderson said he understood how his presence on Carona’s command staff could create the impression that he had close ties to the indicted former sheriff. But he insisted that his relationship with Carona was purely professional and that his elevation to assistant sheriff was the culmination of a long career seeking ever-larger and more challenging assignments.

“Mike Carona and I were not close,” he said. “We were professional, but we were not close. If you can find him and get him to talk, ask him my son’s name. He won’t know.”

People familiar with the board members’ thinking said that their doubts about Anderson were not insurmountable and that he remained a top contender. Yet as the notion of culture change in the department has become a priority, some supervisors are not convinced that a longtime insider and Carona loyalist is the right person for the job.

At least one board member is also said to harbor doubts about Anderson because of two recent incidents: his appearance, in uniform, before San Clemente City Council members in November to urge them to stay neutral on a political endorsement, and his presence at the scene of an apparent suicide by the son of two department officials in January where proper procedures may have been ignored.

The state attorney general concluded that Anderson’s appearance in uniform at the City Council meeting violated state law. The district attorney’s office is investigating the handling of the suicide scene.

Meanwhile, people close to the board say Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Cmdr. Ralph Martin and Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters also have emerged as top contenders for the job.

The selection process has been complicated by the fact that the Republican establishment has fractured into camps supporting different candidates, and that supervisors are in uncharted territory appointing a person to fill an office normally elected by voters.

The situation also makes for some thorny political dynamics: As a top GOP leader, Anderson could hold sway over the campaigns of two of the board’s five supervisors who are up for reelection this year. Anderson has recused himself from the party’s endorsement process to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Mike Schroeder, a former political advisor to Carona and who supports Anderson for the sheriff’s job, said it would be unfair to judge Anderson because of his rank in the prior administration. But he acknowledged that Anderson’s role has become an issue.

“It’s a significant factor that people should take into account when they’re looking at candidates,” he said. “To the extent you want to make a clean break, you have to look at how closely connected the person that you’re considering for the position was connected to the past bad acts that got the department into trouble.”

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christian.berthelsen@latimes.com