Roth Pledges Not to Lobby Officials Through ’97 : Government: Former supervisor’s action comes after the district attorney’s office threatened to bring new charges against him.

SANTA ANA —  Former Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth has agreed not to lobby any local officials for three years after questions arose over whether he violated a lobbying ban imposed by his probation in meeting with transportation officials who once served under him, lawyers said Tuesday.

The district attorney’s office had threatened to bring new charges against Roth over the lobbying issue. But they stopped short of that after Roth pledged not to do any political lobbying through 1997, effectively closing a potential embarrassing loophole in the deal that the former county supervisor struck with prosecutors last year.

Roth pleaded guilty in March, 1993, to seven misdemeanor counts stemming from his failure to report thousands of dollars in trips, loans, home improvements and other gifts from local business people and then voting on county matters that affected them.

Along with the four-year lobbying ban, he was ordered to serve three years’ probation, pay a $50,100 fine and perform 200 hours of community service.

The plea agreement prohibited Roth from working as a lobbyist, as defined by the Political Reform Act. Roth’s lawyers later said that the law applied only to lobbying state officials--not anyone in local government.

As a result, they said, Roth remained free to lobby anyone he wanted at the local level, using his well-established political connections to push projects for area business people.

In a letter that Roth sent to prosecutors March 25, however, Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Ormes said the former supervisor pledged not to do lobbying “at any level” through the end of his probation in 1997.

“I’m satisfied that the terms of the original plea agreement are now very clear and there won’t be any more lobbying,” Ormes said in an interview Monday. “I am convinced it won’t happen again.”

Roth refused comment on the issue Tuesday at his Anaheim Hills home.

His lawyer, Paul S. Meyer, declined to release a copy of the letter, but he said: “We’re satisfied that there was no probation violation, and the matter has now been put to rest. . . . This was all something of a misunderstanding, and I think it’s been clarified.”

But the latest twist in the Roth case appears to leave some room for maneuvering.

Ormes said the letter outlining Roth’s pledge to avoid all lobbying for the next three years will not become part of Roth’s criminal case file. And Meyer made clear that he does not consider the March 25 letter a legally binding document, but rather a formal gesture “to simply satisfy them of Don Roth’s good faith.”

Prosecutors had threatened to take Roth back to court to show that the former Anaheim mayor’s apparent lobbying activities were at odds with the terms of his probation. But they ultimately agreed to drop the matter in exchange for the written pledge from Roth.

Prosecutors launched an investigation last December after The Times disclosed that Roth had met several times with county transportation officials to help retired aerospace engineer Jack Brennan of Fullerton pitch a stalled idea for converting buses to battery power. Brennan wanted up to $1 million in government research money to develop the concept.

Brennan said at the time that Roth--once among the most powerful politicians in the county--had proved crucial in securing “introductions” for him, and in arranging meetings with people who used to work under Roth at the Orange County Transportation Authority. Roth served on the OCTA board for two years before he was forced to resign last year.

Roth had lunch last October with OCTA Chief Executive Officer Stan Oftelie to discuss Brennan’s battery-powered bus idea. Later, at Oftelie’s direction, Roth and Brennan met with two OCTA staff members who reviewed the proposal’s strengths and weaknesses.

Brennan insisted that he never promised Roth any money for his work, but he acknowledged that he likely would have offered Roth a financial piece of the bus project if it succeeded.

Roth maintains that he was never acting as a lobbyist for Brennan.

When the lobbying issue first surfaced four months ago, Ormes maintained that last year’s plea agreement banned Roth “absolutely” from lobbying local officials on behalf of clients.

But he backed off that assessment this week.

“I thought we all understood (one year ago) that lobbying was lobbying, and it was not to happen. (But) arguably, there could be some difference of opinion as to how the Political Reform Act defines some of the terms,” he said. While Ormes said he did not think there was a loophole for local lobbying, he said: “Clearly, it could have been argued that there was.”