Bustamante case highlights weaknesses in O.C.’s handling of workplace issues

Just months before he was handcuffed and taken to jail, Carlos Bustamante was his usual relaxed, confident self when he joined a couple of his Santa Ana City Council colleagues for a boxing match at the Phoenix Club.

As he walked into the packed arena with Councilwoman Michele Martinez, she asked if everything was OK. She’d heard that he was in serious trouble — that even the chair in his old county office had been hauled away as evidence by the authorities.

For years, rumors had swirled about Bustamante’s conduct with women. They’d surfaced when he ran for county supervisor in 2007 and again when he abruptly resigned his $178,277-a-year-job as an executive in the county.

Bustamante told her the same thing he told everyone else: It’s just not true.

But on July 2, just before Bustamante was due at a City Council meeting, the 47-year-old father of three was booked on suspicion of false imprisonment and sexually assaulting at least seven women over an eight-year period. Prosecutors say there are 12 other women whose complaints about Bustamante cannot be pursued because the allegations are too old.

The question that’s now being asked is whether his bosses at the county Civic Center were slow to act. For about a year, county officials had, on-and-off, looked into complaints that Bustamante, an executive in the county public works department, had sexually assaulted women in his office.

The earliest probe — more than 16 months ago — was handed off to one of Bustamante’s subordinates. There’s no record that it resulted in any action. Another was farmed out to a law firm and quietly filed away. Only after an internal county auditor took it upon himself to look into the complaints was the case handed over to the district attorney.

Prosecutors say their months-long investigation revealed that Bustamante would lure the women to his corner office, close the door and hug, kiss and touch them. The women were told that his office was soundproof, and sometimes he would pin them against the wall and masturbate in their presence, authorities said.

Investigators say they want to know how Bustamante’s behavior went undetected for so long and why the anonymous complaints and rumors didn’t result in quicker action.

“We want to know how this wolf was kept in charge of his prey for so long,” said Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas. “How he was able to get away with a perverse abuse of power and position for the last eight years.”

Bustamante — a Santa Ana native who graduated from Mater Dei High School — appeared to have it all when he arrived on the Orange County political scene. He was an Air Force veteran and former state alcohol control agent. He was charismatic, had a broad smile, a loving wife and children he loved to talk about.

When he was elected to the Santa Ana City Council in 2004, he was seen as the new face of the Republican Party. Already a ranking county employee, his council job gave him broader exposure and some saw him as a political natural who might someday go on to become a member of Congress.

He hosted then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at his home in 2005 and, two years later when he ran for county supervisor, he was considered the favorite.

But rumors about Bustamante’s conduct behind closed doors began to surface, and eventually, his lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to opponents to keep them from spreading allegations that he’d been accused of sexual harassment when he worked at the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in the late ‘90s and had fathered a child out of wedlock. He attached the results of a DNA test to prove he wasn’t the child’s father.

On election day, political newcomer Janet Nguyen won the seat. Bustamante ended up fourth.

The next year he resigned from two state commissions to which he’d been appointed by Schwarzenegger — including one that deals with civil rights and discrimination in the workplace — after allegedly making a sexist joke after the appointment of Sandra Hutchens as Orange County’s new sheriff. Bustamante denied making the quip.

“I think that politics is not a forgiving business,” said Jon Fleischman, a conservative blogger who is familiar with Orange County politics. “When you win, you move up and on to the next big challenge. When you lose, you’re pretty much out. And that’s what happened to Carlos Bustamante.”

In March 2011, an anonymous complaint about Bustamante was sent to Supervisor Bill Campbell and Jess Carbajal, Bustmante’s boss in the county public works department. Though it was only a paragraph long, it raised questions about Bustamante’s behavior with women behind the closed door of his office.

At the direction of county Chief Executive Tom Mauk, the complaint was handed off to a human resources representative who worked in the public works department and was a subordinate of Bustamante, according to a lawyer who represents Carbajal.

The investigation did not result in any discipline.

Campbell now acknowledges that the initial investigation was botched and said that at the time, he assumed it had been handed off to the county’s human resources department.

“That was dumb,” he said. “How do you have someone investigate their boss?”

By August, another anonymous letter surfaced, this time going to each county supervisor, the grand jury, the county performance auditor and the Orange County Register.

The two-page document named several high-ranking officials and their alleged misdeeds, suggesting that executive management in Orange County had become a place where “sexual favors and nepotism” were the “corporate bible.”

It also alleged that Bustamante had sex with employees regularly in his office, and that the women received prime parking spaces and exceptional personnel reviews “depending on sexual prowess.”

Campbell said he told Mauk to hire an outside law firm to investigate. Bustamante was placed on paid leave.

When the attorney’s report came back a month later, Mauk determined that the findings in it were so “serious” and “damning” that Bustamante should be told to resign, Campbell said.

The next month, Bustamante resigned with 90 days of severance pay and a pledge not to sue the county, Campbell said.

Only Mauk and a few others saw the report before it was filed away. It resurfaced months later when Peter Hughes, the county’s internal auditor, asked to see a copy as part of an independent investigation he was conducting. At first, he was rebuffed when he asked then-human resources director Carl Crown for the report.

“My recollection was that Mr. Hughes was frustrated that it took so long for the HR director to tell him that such a report even existed,” Supervisor John Moorlach said.

Finally, the findings were presented to county supervisors, who met behind closed doors in March and agreed to turn the case over to the district attorney — a full year after the first allegations surfaced.

After Bustamante’s arrest, and as a video of the handcuffed Santa Ana councilman rocketed across the Internet, the collateral damage at the county Civic Center was plainly visible.

Crown retired, Carbajal was fired and one of Mauk’s chief deputies hurriedly went on medical leave. Supervisors say Mauk could be forced out as soon as thisweek. .

To some, the case reveals a systematic failure at the top reaches of county government to react to sensitive workplace issues.

“If it’s not a breach of policy, it’s certainly a breach of common sense,” said William Popejoy, who was the county’s chief executive after it filed for bankruptcy in 1994.

nicole.santacruz@latimes.com

christine.maiduc@latimes.com