Baugh Declines to Talk to D.A. About Finances : Politics: Office is probing aborted candidacy of Democrat Laurie Campbell. Others in race have cooperated.

Republican Scott Baugh has refused to talk with the Orange County district attorney’s office, which wants to question him about his campaign financing as part of its investigation into the aborted candidacy of Democrat Laurie Campbell, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Baugh, who is one of four candidates seeking to replace Assemblywoman Doris Allen in Tuesday’s recall election, was the only one to put off investigators’ questions until after the election, said Guy Ormes, supervising deputy district attorney.

“He very briefly talked to us and said he wouldn’t answer any more questions until after the election,” Ormes said. “We talked to all the other candidates. All the others were cooperative and eager to discuss it with us.”

Ormes is heading an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the candidacy of Campbell, who was removed from the ballot last month by a Sacramento County Superior Court judge who determined that Campbell had filed falsified nomination papers.

Several people circulated Campbell’s nominating petitions, then arranged for Campbell to sign that she had gathered the signatures herself, the court found. It is a felony under the California Elections Code to file a falsified nomination paper. However, no charges have been filed in the case.

Baugh, who is widely seen as the front-runner in the contest to replace Allen (R-Cypress) if she is recalled, did not respond to repeated efforts to reach him Wednesday.

Democrats have charged that the Campbell candidacy was engineered by Republican leaders to split the potential vote for the other Democrat in the race, Linda Moulton-Patterson. The district, which includes Huntington Beach, Cypress, Los Alamitos and Seal Beach, is half Republican and a third Democratic.

Investigators went to Baugh’s home in Huntington Beach on Saturday to talk to him as part of a monthlong investigation, Ormes said. The Campbell investigation includes not only potential charges against her but also against those who might have influenced or benefited from her entrance in the race.

In addition to “the whole range of issues around the Campbell candidacy,” Ormes said, investigators asked Baugh to “discuss questions about his financial disclosure statements that have developed in the course of investigating the Laurie Campbell matter.”

Baugh’s campaign treasurer confirmed Wednesday that he is amending for the second time the candidate’s Oct. 14 campaign disclosure statement. Registrar of voters’ officials said the amended statement does not have to be filed before Tuesday’s election.

Allen and the other candidates in the race condemned Baugh’s refusal to talk to investigators until after the election. Republican Shirley Carey and Moulton-Patterson called for him to quit the race.

“This evasive, attorney-like behavior, in combination with the admitted lies regarding his experience and the ongoing deception in his brochures, damages his credibility as a candidate,” Carey said. “Voters need to elect someone they know they can trust and who will not be involved in a legal fiasco after the election.”

Another GOP candidate, Don MacAllister, said, “I wish we could find out who really did it to set the record straight and to catch the people who are doing things that are not proper in elections.”

Moulton-Patterson said that Baugh “has already been caught lying on a number of things: . . . He says he is a business manager, and he is an attorney. He said he is on the Board of Trustees of Harbor College, and he is not. The people have a right to know.”

Allen, who gained the enmity of her own party when she was elected Assembly Speaker by Democrats, said she was not approached by the investigators. Declaring the Campbell incident amounted to “fraud and an effort to manipulate the election,” she said Baugh is telling the voters they “don’t deserve to know the answers until after the election. This is an issue that is definitely connected to the election and one that people have a right to know: What part did you play in doing this?”

Campbell, who declined comment Wednesday, attends the same evangelical church as Baugh. She had said in October, when she was still a candidate, that she entered the race to “prevent someone with a more liberal agenda from winning.” She described Baugh as the only other conservative in the race and said Republicans should vote for him.

Campbell has refused to identify who asked her to run, saying, “They asked me not to.”