Jobs for Allies Pose Problems for Carona

Rewarding political allies with high-profile law enforcement jobs can backfire, a lesson some say Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona is now learning.

In 1998, Carona won special dispensation from the Board of Supervisors to appoint former Garden Grove Police Lt. George Jaramillo, who also was his campaign manager, as his assistant sheriff in charge of operations. Carona also named auto auction businessman Don Haidl, one of his key campaign fundraisers, to the unpaid, honorary role of assistant sheriff in charge of reserve deputies.

Haidl’s son, Gregory, was arrested last year on suspicion of participating in a videotaped sexual assault of an unconscious girl.

Newport Beach police have complained that Jaramillo advised Don Haidl that his 18-year-old son not talk with police detectives investigating the alleged rape. Jaramillo, who is also an attorney, denied that he did anything improper. Separately, the grand jury is now investigating whether sheriff’s officials, including Jaramillo, properly handled an Oct. 26 incident where Gregory Haidl was allegedly found in possession of a small amount of marijuana while on bail on the rape case.

In a tape-recorded conversation, Jaramillo and the watch commander are heard agreeing that the incident will not appear on the daily log. Deputies allegedly then drove the younger Haidl home without citing him.

While Carona has said he stands by Haidl and Jaramillo, others warn that appointments of friends and associates to law enforcement jobs need to be weighed with extreme care.

“It’s a bad place to reward political favors,” said Anthony Ribera, director of the International Institute of Criminal Justice Leadership at University of San Francisco and chief of the San Francisco Police Department from 1992 to 1996. “Part of good administration is delegating. If you don’t have real competent people and you’re delegating, you’re in a heap of trouble.”

Even politically motivated appointments to lesser-profile posts can lead to regret.

In 1999, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was criticized over his decision to award reserve deputy status -- as well as guns and badges -- to wealthy and influential community members. One of the reserve deputies, Scott Zacky, whose family owns the Zacky Farms chicken empire, was suspended after he brandished his firearm while confronting a couple outside his Bel-Air home.

Another deputy, Orange County jeweler Elie Abdanour, was arrested on money-laundering charges.

“If I were going to whack myself for something that I probably moved too quickly with, it would probably be that,” Baca said at a news conference at the time.

Law enforcement analysts said choosing a command staff is one of the most important decisions police chiefs and sheriffs can make.

Ribera said he would be “very, very reluctant to go outside of law enforcement to bring in an administrator. Law enforcement is a very complicated and unique position. To assume someone with management skills could come in and take charge is an assumption I would not be willing to make.”

Politics is a way of life in law enforcement, even for chiefs of police who do not face election, said George Wright, chairman of the criminal justice department at Santa Ana College.

“Unfortunately, it’s too common. If the chief of police doesn’t know the power structure, he’s gone,” Wright said. “If the chief doesn’t see which way the wind is blowing, he’s not going to be chief very long.”

In 1992, Newport Beach officials fired Police Chief Arb Campbell amid allegations that he failed to adequately investigate allegations of sexual misconduct involving a friend who was a captain with the department. Campbell was also accused of providing special favors to a friend who had sold him his home on Balboa Peninsula.

The city ended up paying more than $1 million in settlements to resolve lawsuits filed by seven female employees who said they were victims of sexual harassment, allegations involving Campbell and former Capt. Anthony J. Villa Jr. Campbell and Villa, who was also fired, denied the allegations.

Mark Petracca, a UC Irvine political science professor and observer of Orange County politics, said Carona’s appointments of Haidl and Jaramillo call the sheriff’s decision-making into question.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist when it comes to making your top appointments. You shouldn’t simply go down your list of campaign contributors. You might actually conduct searches. If you can’t search nationally, you search within the ranks,” Petracca said.