Roth Pays for Half of Controversial Landscaping Bill : Inquiry: Work done on supervisor’s yard is latest issue in district attorney’s probe of alleged influence peddling. His lawyer blames accounting ‘glitch.’

SANTA ANA —  County Supervisor Don R. Roth, dogged by recent questions about the landscaping of his front yard two years ago, sent a major developer a check for $975 this week to pay for his portion of the job, his lawyer said Friday.

Attorney Dana Reed said Roth plans to leave the other half of the controversial bill to his ex-wife, Jackie Roth, but she said she has no intention of paying it.

Reed blamed Roth’s failure to pay the developer until now on “an accounting glitch” by the company, and he added that Roth “is horrified by this.” He said he does not know whether Roth’s check has been cashed.

The landscaping job is the latest issue to surface in the ongoing investigation by the Orange County district attorney into influence-peddling allegations against Roth. Authorities are trying to determine whether Roth exchanged political favors for gifts from local business people, including meals, trips, home improvements, flight upgrades and other items.

Roth has predicted that he will be exonerated.

The Times disclosed last month that the Baldwin Co., a major local home builder, paid a landscaping firm $1,950 to install an automatic irrigation system, put in 2,000 square feet of sod and plant an assortment of trees and shrubs in the front yard of the Roths’ Anaheim Hills home in 1990.

Roth voted at least five times on Baldwin matters before the county in the year following the work, records show. The votes could be a violation of state conflict-of-interest laws if prosecutors determine that the landscaping represented a gift to Roth.

An attorney for Geoffrey Fearns, the president of the Baldwin Co.’s Orange County division, has said Fearns arranged to have the work done quickly and cheaply as a “favor” for Roth to help him sell the home. Fearns testified before the Orange County Grand Jury last week in the Roth case.

Fearns, who insisted that his firm never paid for the work when questioned by reporters last month, later asserted that company bookkeepers lost track of the invoice showing that Baldwin paid the bill. As a result, Reed said Roth never realized that he had not paid for the work until reporters and authorities began asking questions earlier this month.

“I don’t anticipate any legal problems,” Reed said. “Don Roth never asked for a gift (from Baldwin), and he never received one.”

Reed released a letter Friday that he said was sent to Fearns earlier this week. In it, Reed thanked Fearns for notifying him on Nov. 18 of the outstanding bill and said: “I am enclosing the supervisor’s check for his share, in the sum of $975 made payable to the Baldwin Co.”

Fearns did not return telephone messages Friday seeking comment on the payment.

Reed said in the letter that Roth will leave the other half of the $1,950 landscaping bill for his ex-wife, Jackie Roth, who co-owns and lives in the Anaheim Hills house where the work was done. But Jackie Roth said she will not pay the rest of the bill.

“I have a letter from Don (in September, 1990) stating that he’s responsible for the entire bill,” Jackie Roth said in an interview. “I said at that time I wouldn’t put any more money into this house.”

But even if Roth has paid part of the bill, he may be open to questions about whether he must report the full value of the landscaping work as a possible gift on economic disclosure forms. Several Orange County landscapers have said in interviews that the work done on the Roths’ front yard would normally cost two to three times the $1,950 price tag.

Reed said he is unsure whether Roth, under state law, is obligated to determine a fair-market value for the work and to report any difference in price between that and the $1,950 bill as a gift.

“That raises an issue that I’ll have to look at,” Reed said. “I really don’t know the answer.”