Carona faces county audit of spending

Orange County officials want to block indicted Sheriff Michael S. Carona’s access to a county credit card issued to his department while he is on a self-imposed 60-day paid leave, and they have launched an audit of his office’s spending going back to 1999, his first year as sheriff.

The county’s audit oversight committee met Wednesday and decided to look at 21 accounts in the Sheriff’s Department, including petty cash, said Supervisor John Moorlach.

County Auditor-Controller David Sundstrom said the probe was precautionary, sparked by Carona’s federal indictment on public corruption charges. He said auditors will also examine the sheriff’s travel on county business.

Carona is accused of a broad conspiracy to sell access to his office for tens of thousands of dollars and gifts, such as a boat, pricey watches and tickets to the World Series and a Las Vegas boxing match. He is not accused of using public funds for personal use.

The sheriff has pleaded not guilty, as has his wife, Deborah, and Debra V. Hoffman, identified in court documents as his longtime mistress.

“There is no indication by reading the indictment or through other sources that there’s any nefarious activity in the Sheriff’s Department,” Sundstrom said.

But Moorlach said Carona “shouldn’t be using county funds” after he goes on administrative leave Friday and asked the auditor’s office to bar him from using a county credit card or other public assets.

Carona will, however, be paid $33,166 over the 60 days that he is working on his defense.

Typically, each department has a credit card that can be used for county business, said Peter Hughes, director of internal audits for the Board of Supervisors. A small number of people within a department are authorized to use the card, he said.

Sundstrom and other officials were not certain Wednesday whether Carona still had a card in his possession.

Carona’s spokesman, Michael Schroeder, said the sheriff did not.

Moorlach is still fuming over a 10-day fact-finding trip to Europe taken in March by Carona and three top officials from his department.

According to Moorlach, Carona said one of his stops was a DNA lab in England used by law enforcement, but the sheriff never set foot in the building.

Moorlach said Carona lied to the board in August when he told supervisors he had visited the lab. Last week, one of the assistant sheriffs who traveled with Carona said he was never there but met with Scotland Yard officials instead.

“It was then that I said I’m calling for his resignation,” Moorlach said. “That’s plain lying.”

He questioned whether the trip was even necessary.

Undersheriff Jo Ann Galisky, named acting sheriff by Carona, blasted critics of the trip, saying it served a useful purpose. Galisky, Assistant Sheriff Steve Bishop and Orange County DNA lab manager Dean Gialamas were on the trip. Carona’s wife joined them in France.

“To tell you the truth, I’m a little offended by this interpretation that these types of trips serve no purpose and are just a vacation,” Galisky said Wednesday. “Those of us in leadership positions have BlackBerrys and our work is constant. It doesn’t stop just because we’re there in Europe.”

She said everyone but Gialamas skipped the DNA lab visit in Birmingham to make more efficient use of their time. Carona and the others instead met with the director of Forensic Science Services at the New Scotland Yard office in London, Galisky said.

Gialamas said he reviewed software the Birmingham lab has produced. The Orange County and Birmingham labs are talking about collaborating, he said.

The law enforcement officials also met with counterparts at Interpol headquarters in France as well as experts on terrorism and airport and transportation security.

Moorlach and other supervisors are also unhappy that Carona will remain on the county’s payroll while on leave. But they are powerless to stop it because he is an elected official.

The supervisors were also displeased by Carona designating Galisky as acting sheriff without consulting them, but the board has no legal authority to overrule his decision. An amendment to the county charter proposed Tuesday by Moorlach would have included giving the board authority to name an interim head of the Sheriff’s Department, but it was defeated on a 3-to-2 vote.

Board Chairman Chris Norby supported the amendment. On Wednesday, he said County Counsel Ben de Mayo has advised the board that Galisky cannot legally be called acting sheriff.

“The sheriff can designate certain responsibilities whenever he is gone from the office,” Norby said. “Operationally, she’s taking over some of the duties, but she’s not acting sheriff.”

The sheriff’s command officers are scheduled to meet today with de Mayo to discuss which responsibilities can be legally handed over to Galisky.

Carona’s legal woes also led to a budding controversy Wednesday among members of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, whose board of directors Tuesday called on Carona to resign or take a leave of absence while he fights the charges against him. Several deputies who requested anonymity complained that the board acted without consulting the membership or advising them.

Association general manager Mark Nichols said the board acted after “contacts with individual deputies since the indictment” of Carona was announced.

“A few members have told us this wasn’t their position. Others have told us they were going to sit back and see what’s going on,” Nichols said. “There were others who wanted us to take a more aggressive position. The general consensus was that it’s too bad the issue is before us.”

hgreza@latimes.com

david.reyes@latimes.com