Raabe Conviction Cheered--Sort of

Hooray! Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi and Assistant Dist. Atty. Jan Nolan have won a conviction of a “deckhand” in the great Orange County bankruptcy, the financial equivalent to the Titanic disaster.

We should all feel much better knowing the Board of Supervisors of the county’s Titanic and Captain Citron have escaped unscathed. It’s true you can’t be convicted for being stupid. If that were true, the jails would be thrice full.

Some of us were aware the supervisors and Captain Citron didn’t know their ice from a hole in the financial ocean, and didn’t board that last fatal sailing. It wasn’t that you needed to be a financial expert. You simply needed to know the supervisors and Captain Citron were known for sailing fast in unchartered financial waters.

This financial disaster is a lesson to us all. To some extent, we got what we deserved. When the preposterous plan of the supervisors wasn’t pointed out more vigorously, the underinformed financial passengers suffered. Every voter therefore shares the blame, guilt and financial burden.

When Assistant Dist. Atty. Jan Nolan says Matthew R. Raabe, the former assistant county treasurer, is not a “scapegoat,” it leads me to believe she doesn’t know what’s going on or just needs a conviction. After all, wasn’t it Raabe who blew the whistle on Captain Citron?

Frankly, I blame Nolan and Capizzi, her boss, for not gaining a conviction on the supervisors and their aides--and merely winning a jailing of Captain Citron. It’s ironic that Citron’s “punishment” is filling out paperwork. Maybe he should serve time at the DMV.

I don’t see Raabe’s conviction as a win. I see it as a loss for us all. The jurors tried their best not to convict “scapegoat” Raabe. It’s too bad the jurors never really got a chance to judge the elected officials who escaped due to Capizzi’s ineptitude.

One wonders what would have happened if the bankruptcy had never happened and great fortunes were made. Don’t you just know the supervisors would have attempted to take all of the credit.

PHILLIP R. SCHWARTZE

Ex-mayor of San Juan Capistrano

* Now that Raabe has been found guilty of his participation in the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States, along with Citron, how do taxpayers benefit?

The additional millions spent in the litigation of these two and the fact that Citron was given a sentence to play daytime clerk and go home each evening further reinforces the lack of credibility in the judicial process. Raabe will probably get a similar sentence.

Both of the convicted felons should have been given the full sentence, working to pay whatever restitution they could, given their net worth, resources and labor over the dozen-plus years their sentences should have been.

Was justice served? Did the taxpayers prevail? Did the bad guys get what they deserved? Not in the case of Citron. We shall see, when they sentence Raabe.

JAMES H. BRIDGES

Costa Mesa