George and Mike: Partners in crime

​It's safe to say that Orange County wasn't the same once George Jaramillo became second in command at the sheriff's department in 1999 and it certainly became more boring after Jaramillo was sent to federal prison a decade later for public corruption.

The 51-year-old Jaramillo is a quick minded, talented fellow who dreamed of becoming California's first Latino governor, but his adulterous exploits and unbridled ambition became legendary in the shameful saga of Mike Carona's era atop the state's second largest police agency.

News flash: Jaramillo is baaaaack! His punishment is over. His chains are now off.
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The past haunts Spitzer

​Orange County supervisor candidate Todd Spitzer--who apparently returns the phone calls of reporters who'll toss him softballs--got more evidence today that he won't easily sail to victory.More >>

Teflon Mikey loses his magic

Disgraced ex-Sheriff Mike Carona, once absurdly hailed as "America's sheriff" by CNN's Larry King, is going to federal prison.More >>

Moorlach is suffering from frightening amnesia

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Survived pesky questioning?

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Still can't buy class

​Veteran Orange County Register investigative reporter Tony Saavedra provided the day's most outrageous news.More >>

​Recall that in his crafty defense of his sexual conduct with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, President Bill Clinton famously uttered this line during a grand jury proceeding about his marital infidelity: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

And so we go from one philander to the next, ex-Sheriff Michael S. Carona, who is arguing that his federal corruption conviction should be overturned based, in part, on the definition of the word "withhold."
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Some smells just won't go away

​The nasty stench of the sheriff-turned-convicted-felon Mike Carona era continues to odorize Southern California.

Today, a state court of appeal based in Santa Ana rejected arguments by Raymond Kiu Jin Yi, one of the many dubious characters Carona handed real Orange County Sheriff's badges before his 2007 FBI arrest. Yi parlayed his newfound importance into pathetic bullying acts during a 2005 round of golf at the Los Serranos Golf & Country Club in Chino Hills.

He whipped out his OCSD badge and asked, "Do you know who I am?" to four men playing golf ahead of his group, demanded to see their driver's licenses, pushed one of them and pointed a cocked semi-automatic handgun at them.

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Rawitz (L) saved Sheriff Carona's sorry ass

​Sadly, Jeffrey M. Rawitz--one of Jones Day's feisty defense lawyers who represented ex-Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona in his federal corruption trial earlier this year--is hospitalized in Los Angeles at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

During Carona's three-month trial in Santa Ana, Rawitz participated in almost all hearings despite significant spinal cord pain following a pre-trial accident. He often limped in and out of U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford's courtroom, but always fought strenuously on Carona's behalf. Indeed, Rawitz was singlehandedly the life of the defense--an opinion numerous jurors shared with me after a lucky Carona won acquittal on five of six charges.

The injury has now caused Rawitz to resign not just from Carona's defense team (which is appealing the conviction for sabotaging a federal grand jury investigating corruption at the Orange County Sheriff's Department) but also from Jones Day.

"I am in a lot of pain," Rawitz, 46, told me last night in a phone interview from his hospital bed. "I am really hurting."

And, true to form, he continued to lobby me, perhaps Carona's biggest media critic.

"Someday, I'm going to convince you," he said, "that the government's case against Carona was weak."

I don't know about that assertion given that federal prosecutors Brett Sagel and Ken Julian proved beyond a doubt that Carona was a sheriff-hoodlum with egomaniac tendencies, but I do pray that Rawitz heals quickly.

--R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Two Top OC Cops Turn Convicted Felons

​He once dreamed of becoming California's first Latino governor. He finagled an improbable transition from Garden Grove police sergeant to the powerful No. 2 post at the Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD). He even managed to create a fan club within the George W. Bush White House. But late Monday afternoon, ex-Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo discovered there are consequences to unbridled ambition: a 27-month federal prison sentence and the forfeiture of at least $233,000.

"I am here to say that I am profoundly sorry for what I have done," a weepy Jaramillo (pictured on the left with Sheriff Mike Carona) told U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford before punishment was announced in the bribery case against him. "My cavalier, irresponsible, lackadaisical mode of operation while sitting in a position of public trust was criminal. I need to apologize publicly. I was not raised to violate the law. . . . I blame no one for the circumstances I am in."

But if Jaramillo, who considers himself an expert strategist, thought his words would seal a sweetheart deal that would keep him out of prison in exchange for home confinement, he was terribly misguided. Indeed, the hearing wowed those in attendance (including six reporters) by how quickly Jaramillo and his legal team, headed by Brent Romney, seemed to argue themselves out of the relatively good graces of federal prosecutor Brett Sagel. The Jaramillo strategy combined two parts arrogance and one part contrition, a doomed recipe to anyone awake.

Prior to the hearing, it was Sagel who generously recommended that Jaramillo get a whopping six-point downward departure in the sentencing guidelines based on his willingness to accept responsibility for his crimes and his cooperation for helping to bring down the degenerate former sheriff. Incredibly, though, the defense attacked Sagel in its sentencing brief, calling him a liar and adopting a disrespectful tone that preposterously implied Jaramillo was ethically superior to the assistant United States attorney. At the end of the defense presentations, Sagel stood up, shook his head and said, "I no longer believe he's entitled to a downward departure of all six levels. . . . He still thinks the law applies to everyone but him."

Jaramillo's eyes widened, and he rapidly rubbed his lips and chin with the fingers on his right hand. Sagel compared the ex-assistant sheriff to a child who kills his parents, and then seeks sympathy because he's an orphan. The analogy stiffened Jaramillo's body. Sagel paused. The prosecutor then announced, "We ask for a period of incarceration." Jaramillo slowly shook his head in recognition that his plight now would include a stop in a federal penitentiary. More >>