LOCAL ELECTIONS / DISTRICT ATTORNEY : Gloves Off--Behind the Scenes

LAGUNA HILLS —  As the neck-and-neck race for Orange County district attorney entered its final week, longtime adversaries Michael R. Capizzi and James G. Enright voiced familiar campaign themes in public Tuesday but added a new twist behind the scenes.

They started the day shortly after sunrise with a spirited, face-to-face discussion before more than two dozen Mission Viejo Kiwanis Club members at the Laguna Hills Holiday Inn.

It will be more of the same for the candidates in the days to come, with each tackling a busy schedule of speaking engagements and other political events as they grapple for the upper hand in a race that has so far attracted little interest from the electorate.

During their 45-minute debate in Laguna Hills, Capizzi and Enright stuck mainly to the major themes of the campaign, each taking only occasional swipes at the other.

Enright, chief deputy district attorney in Orange County for the last 24 years, pledged to prosecute environmental crimes aggressively and to tackle gangs and drug dealers. But he stressed that the best remedy for such ills is “education that begins in grammar school.”

Capizzi, who was appointed district attorney by the Board of Supervisors in January, agreed that education programs are important but suggested that prosecutors have to “recognize our role” and stick “in the courts, not in the classrooms.”

When Capizzi noted that he had received support from 86% of the office’s prosecutors, Enright countered that just 55% of the deputy district attorneys voted, because of fears that the ballots were not being kept secret.

“That’s not an election,” Enright said, comparing it to “something you’d see in the Philippines” during the days of deposed President Ferdinand Marcos.

Capizzi did not counterattack during the morning gathering but later in the day issued a press release accusing Enright of conspiring with Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Avdeef, an unsuccessful district attorney candidate in the June primary, in a “brazen attempt” to blackmail him.

Capizzi scuttled Avdeef’s chances for a promotion on May 2, about a month before the primary. Avdeef sought to have the decision reversed, but the county’s Personnel Department rejected the appeal on May 30.

On Oct. 24, an attorney for Avdeef--who has endorsed Enright and is working with his campaign--sent a letter to Capizzi, saying his client had been wrongly passed over because of politics. The letter demanded that Avdeef be promoted.

Capizzi said that “circumstantial evidence” ties Enright to Avdeef’s effort to gain promotion just days before the Nov. 6 election. He noted Avdeef’s political ties to Enright in the current campaign.

In addition, the two shared the same attorney when they tried unsuccessfully earlier this year to block the appointment of Capizzi as district attorney, he said.

“It’s an effort by them to put me in an untenable position,” Capizzi said Tuesday afternoon. “If I ignored it, they would go ahead and file a lawsuit and say I tried to sweep it all under the rug. I hope they know me well enough to know I would never consent to giving in.”

Enright said those allegations against him are “absolutely absurd.”

He denied talking to Avdeef about sending the letter. “It’s amazing that (Capizzi) is the one who went forward and talked to the press about this thing,” Enright said. “It must mean he’s a little desperate. I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s going to gain from it.”

A recent Los Angeles Times Poll indicates that nearly half the voters remained undecided about which man to support. The poll showed Enright leading Capizzi, 29% to 23%, with 48% undecided.

But Capizzi holds a solid lead in raising campaign funds, with a war chest of more than $222,000 as of Sept. 30, compared to about $80,000 for Enright.

“There will be no stone left unturned,” Capizzi said of his strategy, which will include campaign mailers, telephone calls to voters and other tactics during the final days. “I’m approaching this as I always approached the trial of a criminal matter--with thoroughness.”

Enright, meanwhile, planned to keep up his end with advertisements in newspapers and mailers to select county areas with a large voter turnout.

“It will all be positive-type stuff, nothing negative,” he promised.