Carona in Cuffs!
Sheriff Mike Carona, facing federal criminal corruption charges, turned himself in early this morning at the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in downtown Santa Ana. Later in the afternoon, Carona, along with his wife Debbie and mistress Debra Hoffman, appeared in the courtroom of Judge Robert Block for a pre-arraignment hearing . . . aaahhh, you don't wanna read that stuff.
And I don't wanna write it, either. Seriously, you can find all that blah-blah somewhere else (excepting maybe the OC Register, still reeling from getting totally scooped by the LA Times when the Carona indictment story broke).
I'd rather scrawl about the odd gent in the highwater pants and football T-shirt--apparently a court regular--who chatted up a bailiff just outside Judge Robert Block's courtroom. The bailiff seemed to know him:
"I'm here for the Carona case!" said the guy, excitedly. "I shook his hand this morning!"
"Did you wash it?" asked his bailiff buddy.
"No!"
So the coming Carona trial has its first groupie.
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After eight years with Los Angeles Times Magazine (where he's currently a senior editor), Martin Smith is heading back to OC to be editor-in-chief of Orange Coast Magazine. 
TUSTIN HAUNT, @ sunset
Carona Should Resign? Absolutely not. There is no telling which clown would takeover from the cesspool that contains Carona’s upper management. Besides, as an investigative journalist, I’d mourn the loss of a character like Mike Carona sitting atop the sheriff’s department. Sure, he’s dirty. Yes, yes, he routinely tries to use the powers of his office to frighten me. But Carona’s a guaranteed scandal maker. Last year, I dubbed him “Calamity Mike” after we obtained an audio recording of him having sex with a department secretary while his temperamental wife (indicted too, can you believe?) and sweet son (too young to be committing felonies yet--we hope) sat feet away in another vehicle. Classy. I’ve been around long enough to know two things: Carona’s not 100 percent bad and he very well may someday enter a local fine dining establishment with his chest out and his nose up—winking, of course, at chicks who still dig his soiled uniform. Carona and wife Deborah—not Debra, his longtime mistress (indicted too, can you believe?)—hit the media circuit yesterday. It must have been painful, considering the depths of the sheriff’s hatred of the press. He told Christine Hanley at the Los Angeles Times, “I’m staying because I love the job and I do a good job.” Sure, Mikey. Looks fun. The wife—how can she reign superior over her tea group now?—played whiny victim by casting FBI and IRS agents as villains. Please, women. We should thank the Feds who worked on this case. Without you folks, Orange County would be lawless for the power players who run the place. Final thought until tomorrow: The idea of ex-Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl—a slimy, hillbilly character straight from central casting who has already pleaded guilty in the bribery scheme—wearing a wire while OC’s top cop allegedly tries to convince him to lie to a federal grand jury is priceless. I imagine the conversation going like this:
Hello cinephiles.
With the 
Thanks to the ever-popular Brazilian bikini wax, crabs (public lice) are quite possibly the next critters to make it to the endangered species list. 
About a month ago, I trailed the Southern California Paranormal Research Society on a series of paranormal investigations of local Orange County locations. The group had some unconventional beliefs to say the least (their leader believes he has a portal to the light in his abdominal region. . .) but I still enjoyed myself and learned a lot about the human imagination. 
