Carmony Trial Will Also Explore O.C. GOP Actions

When GOP aide Rhonda Carmony goes on trial next week for her alleged role in fielding a decoy Democrat to splinter the vote and boost Republican chances in a critical 1995 election, the actions of some of Orange County’s Republican leaders will be at issue as well.

Prosecutors say their case will not be limited to the issue of whether the 27-year-old chief campaign aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) helped a few other GOP political activists file falsified campaign documents on behalf of the spoiler candidate, Laurie Campbell.

Legal briefs and statements by prosecutors in court this week reveal the district attorney will offer testimony to show that Carmony was doing the spade work of the California Independent Business PAC, a powerful conservative political organization. The group worked to seize control of the state Assembly from the Democrats and thus elevate Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) to the speakership in 1996.

The trial, set to begin Monday, will be watched in Sacramento as well as in Orange County, drawing the particular attention of the Assembly’s Republican caucus, where last week Pringle beat back a challenge to his leadership organized by GOP Assemblyman Tom J. Bordonaro Jr. of Paso Robles.

There are other statewide political implications as well.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi is planning a run for state attorney general. His prosecutions of Assemblyman Scott R. Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), Carmony and other GOP aides--all growing out of the pivotal 67th District recall election in 1995--has placed Capizzi squarely at odds with conservative GOP elements in the county.

The broad-spectrum trial strategy of Capizzi’s prosecutors could boost that candidacy by showing that these same conservative firebrands tried to manipulate the voters two years ago, say political observers.

“This will help Capizzi’s statewide effort absolutely because in an open primary he will be able to appeal to reform-minded Republicans and Democrats,” said Orange County political consultant Dan Wooldridge.

The Stakes for Pringle

There could be other fallout for Pringle. His chief lieutenant, Jeff Flint, has been named in court documents as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, though Flint says he did nothing illegal.

Two junior aides to Pringle and one to Rohrabacher pleaded guilty last year for illegal actions they took to place Campbell on the ballot in the special election to recall and replace maverick GOP Assemblywoman Doris Allen of Cypress.

Creighton Laz, Carmony’s attorney, won’t say if she will take the stand and tell what, if anything, she knows about the effort to tamper with the election ballot.

However, in court papers filed Tuesday, Carmony asserted that Pringle “had the most to gain or lose” and added that “the effort to place Campell on the ballot was run either out of Curt Pringle’s office or by individuals associated with Pringle,” including Flint.

Laz says Carmony is a scapegoat. “The prosecution has taken the position that Rhonda Carmony was calling the shots,” he said in an interview. “That is absolutely not true. Evidence will be clear that Rhonda did not have a direct interest in what happened that day. That was somebody else’s concern and somebody else’s business.”

Pringle and Rohrabacher have said that they had no role in planting a Democrat on the ballot to siphon votes from leading Democratic challenger Linda Moulton Patterson. Both men declined comment for this story.

Charles Spagnola, Flint’s attorney, said Carmony’s defense is not believable. “There are two opposing factions in the party and the people pointing the finger at Flint are going to say whatever it is that benefits their bosses,” he said.

Carmony, who is Rohrabacher’s campaign director and fiancee, is charged with three felonies: falsely making a nominating petition, falsely filing a nominating petition and conspiracy to falsely file a nominating petition. Prosecutors allege that she persuaded others to gather voters’ signatures on Campbell’s nominating petitions, knowing that the candidate would be called upon to swear to election officials that she collected the signatures herself.

While it is not against the law to recruit a decoy candidate, it is illegal to help file falsified nominating petitions.

The three Republican aides convicted last year in the case had pleaded guilty to circulating petitions that they knew would not be completed properly. They brought the paperwork to the parking lot of the registrar of voters’ office a few minutes before the 5 p.m. filing deadline on Sept. 21, 1995, and met with Campbell, the decoy Democrat.

Campbell signed the papers while seated in a car with Carmony and Pringle aide Jeff Gibson, then filed the documents and swore under penalty of perjury that she had gathered the signatures herself, according to grand jury testimony.

Prosecutors allege the crime was committed to hide the GOP’s role in her candidacy.

Campbell, who has been cooperating with prosecutors, is expected to testify.

So is Catherine Rayner, a former political lieutenant at the California Independent Business PAC, whose members and former associates have contributed more than $8.6 million since 1992 to conservative candidates and causes.

Rayner this week dismissed her attorney, who had been paid by the California Independent Business PAC, and met twice with prosecutors, sharing with them a small number of PAC documents and calendars from 1995, she said.

One of the documents, which was obtained by The Times, identifies Flint as having a key role in drafting Campbell. The one-page memorandum, prepared for distribution to the four wealthy Southern California couples who made up the political group, says that Flint was “in charge of filing” for the Campbell candidacy.

It also referred to Campbell as “ ‘our’ Democrat” and said that more than a dozen Republican partisans, including Pringle himself, were contacted about “getting [more] Democrats on the ballot” as the Sept. 21 deadline approached.

Rayner, a Dartmouth graduate who was laid off by the PAC in December 1995, just weeks after the Campbell controversy erupted in the press, acknowledged in an interview that she had written the memorandum. She said the document was faxed or read Sept. 20 to the group’s eight members.

The memo says Rayner’s boss, Danielle Madison, had “talked to” Pringle about recruiting Democrats. In an interview, Rayner described that conversation as heated, with Madison warning Pringle and Flint not to “screw this up.”

Rayner’s memo also warned that “if enough Republicans split the vote, and the opposition succeeds in filing only one Democrat, we could end up with a Democrat winning the seat.”

Madison, shown a copy of the document this week, said “it could be” authentic, but “I can’t tell.”

Paul Meyer, attorney for the PAC, declined to comment.

In an interview, Rayner expressed surprise that the GOP staffers messed up the effort to put a spoiler Democrat on the ballot.

“I had no idea they would go out and actually collect signatures for her. That was beyond the pale,” she said. “When we would do it, we would do it far enough ahead, so we could check with our candidates and make sure they were working on” gathering the signatures themselves.

Rayner, who performed a variety of tasks for the political group and wrote most of its internal reports, said it wasn’t unusual for the GOP to recruit Democratic, Green Party or Peace and Freedom Party candidates to dilute the opposition vote.

When maverick Republican Assemblyman Paul Horcher of Diamond Bar was being recalled by the GOP establishment in 1995, several Democrats were cultivated to run in the race to replace him, though only one ultimately filed papers, she said.

“This is done all the time,” she said. “This is a pattern.”

California Independent Business PAC, which ceased operations in March largely because of changes in state campaign finance laws, was founded by wealthy Orange County philanthropist Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., heir to a savings and loan fortune, and his wife, Roberta.

Despite Ahmanson’s Orange County roots, Rayner said there was a rift between Madison, the PAC’s executive director, and some Pringle aides, most notably Flint.

Out of the Loop

Although the group’s members ultimately contributed $50,000 to Baugh’s campaign, they were uncomfortable during the recall drive. Flint, Rayner said, shut them out of the information loop: “When I called to see how it was going, Jeff would say, ‘The only thing I need from you, Catherine, is a check. So, tell Danielle to send money.’ ”

As the filing deadline for candidates approached, Rayner called Flint to ask if any Democrats had been recruited to run in that race. Flint assured her, Rayner said, that Campbell was in fact being signed up, calling the legal secretary “our Democrat.” He also told Rayner that he had a firm grip on the operation to get Campbell on the ballot.

“He said, ‘It’s being taken care of. We’re filing her.’ I remember him saying, ‘I’m handling it,’ ” recalled Rayner.

When she told Madison of the conversation, Rayner said, the group’s executive director wasn’t satisfied. Madison picked up the phone and called Pringle herself.

Rayner said she overheard the conversation as Madison bluntly laid out her concerns to Pringle.

“She said, ‘You’re going to look like dirt if you screw this up.’ She laid into him. She said she wanted a report from them on the hour,” Rayner said.

Rayner said the group’s small staff was under incredible pressure to have up-to-the-minute, inside information on campaigns of interest to the conservative business PAC.

Sometimes, Rayner said, she pretended to be a Democrat and worked for a day on a particular campaign simply to gather opposition information. They called it their “eyes and ears” operation.

“The things we did weren’t illegal, but they definitely weren’t moral,” she said.

When called before the Orange County Grand Jury in February 1996 to testify on the Campbell matter, Rayner offered a similar but less detailed version of the events, according to transcripts.

Rayner insists she is not waging a vendetta against her former employer or Pringle and Flint. She characterizes her motives as wanting to “tell the full truth.”