If Carona charges are true, a jolting betrayal of trust

What reverberates from the seven-count indictment against Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona is that it depicts him as a fraud from the start. Gone is the notion that he was the family-values guy who came into office in 1999 as a wide-eyed innocent who looked you in the eye and told the truth -- only to be betrayed and corrupted by those who lurked in the dark forests of politics.

That would, at least, be a story with some genuine pathos.

Instead, if what federal prosecutors and a grand jury allege is true, Carona was every bit the corrupt pol who understood from his first campaign in 1998 that it was all about money. And that he wanted some.

Turns out that his talent, trumpeted in both the local and national media, wasn’t that he was a straight shooter, but that he knew how to fake it. He knew that if you looked good, spoke well and could turn on the charm at just the right time, you could fool people for a long time.

“There are some people who, if they told you the sky is blue, the first thing you’d do is run to the window and look outside,” a city councilman told me a few years ago when talking about Carona. “If Mike says the sky is blue, you don’t have to open the curtains.”

Today, partway through his third term, Carona faces potential disgrace. The first step toward redemption is to resign his office -- the only honorable thing for any county’s top cop to do when facing multiple criminal charges.

I’ve written before that indictments aren’t proof of guilt, and I’m not going to reverse course now just because an indicted sheriff makes for juicy copy. An accused person doesn’t get to defend himself in front of the grand jury, and Carona must be presumed innocent.

However, resigning isn’t an admission of guilt. It’s a show of respect for an office whose occupant must be beyond reproach.

In short, it’s hard to look the other way when a sheriff is indicted.

A troubling element is that the case, as outlined by the U.S. attorney’s office, fills in some puzzle pieces that once seemed slightly askew but which now fit perfectly. Such as, why did Carona circumvent protocol in his first term and ask the Board of Supervisors to let him name George Jaramillo an assistant sheriff, despite Jaramillo’s lack of qualifications? Or why Carona then named Don Haidl an unpaid assistant sheriff?

At the time, Carona acknowledged his friendship with both men (Jaramillo had been his campaign manager) but said both were qualified. Now it’s alleged they were his partners in crime, and both have copped pleas.

The indictment draws a sharp picture. It says the three engaged in a plan in which, essentially, Haidl funneled money to Carona and Jaramillo for their personal use. The plan, originally disguised as campaign contributions, widened to include gifts and money to Carona’s wife and to an Orange County attorney described in the indictment as Carona’s “longtime mistress.”

In exchange, the indictment alleges, Haidl benefited through his appointment to the Sheriff Department’s hierarchy. It says Carona also intervened “to corruptly benefit Haidl’s friends, family and business associates, as well as other gift-givers and contributors.”

The indictment includes charges against Carona, as well as others naming Debra Victoria Hoffman, identified as the mistress. One of the conspiracy counts naming Carona includes his wife, Deborah.

The grand jury alleges that the illegality sprouted during Carona’s first run for office, when he emerged from the relative obscurity of the office of Orange County marshal to take on Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters in a bid to succeed longtime Sheriff Brad Gates.

As early as May 1999, just a few months into his first term, Carona addressed the issue of whether Haidl had first tried to curry favor during the campaign with Walters. Carona said at a news conference that he was aware of the rumor but didn’t believe it to be true.

So, five months into his office -- if federal prosecutors are correct -- Carona was already lying to us.

The bill of particulars laid out against Carona this week ranges from receiving but not reporting penny-ante largesse -- sports event tickets and fancy pens -- to things like boats and family vacations and free plane rides.

More egregious, to my way of thinking, are the indictment’s references to Carona, Jaramillo and Haidl referring clients to a law firm and then using some of the legal fees “to enrich themselves. . . .”

Or, is it more egregious that, as the indictment notes, Carona and Jaramillo drew $1,000 monthly stipends for a time “under the false pretense that [they] were earning this money” for taking part in a charity board’s activities?

Sleaziness is in the eye of the beholder.

The money-grubbing, if true, disgusts me more in some ways than the two counts in the indictment alleging that Carona tried to get Haidl to lie to the grand jury.

After a while, it all runs together.

How do you quantify the damage to public trust when someone like Carona, who has always purported to be a God-fearing leader of county law enforcement, must explain away allegations of having a mistress, cronyism, witness-tampering and fraud?

Early indications are that Carona will fight the corruption charges.

What a sentence to write for the man once dubbed “America’s Sheriff” by TV talk show host Larry King, after Carona’s impassioned appearances following the abduction of a young girl.

I’m sure the sheriff was heartfelt during that wrenching episode.

As for the integrity of anything else he’s ever said or done while in office, your guess is as good as mine.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.