Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona insists his life is all about “his personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Tell that to the women who’ve filed legal complaints against the sheriff alleging sexual harassment and extra-marital affairs. One married woman says under oath that the sheriff repeatedly invited her to a romantic weekend in a San Francisco hotel. Under penalty of perjury, another woman says the sheriff promised to hire her husband as a deputy in exchange for sex. Still another, a department secretary who sought Carona’s help during a personal crisis, soon found herself the object of the sheriff’s desires—inside his government SUV. Carona, who’s never found a scandal he couldn’t blame on someone else, insinuates that the women are nuts and part of an undefined conspiracy to ruin his image as a conservative Christian politician.

 

So how to explain the lewd birthday cards Carona gave Lisa Jaramillo in 2002 and 2003? At the time, Jaramillo worked for Carona as his chief campaign fund-raiser; she is also the wife of George Jaramillo, Carona’s then-No. 2 in the department.

The card, depicting a female bunny in underwear, includes the message, “How quickly they creep up! Happy Birthday.” Carona added, “Unless of course you wear the butt-floss style. Happy, happy birthday from the entire Carona clan—Mike, Debbie, Matthew & . . . the Little Sheriff.”

Note: the sheriff has only one child and, it seems, a pecker clamoring for attention.

A year later, in a card inscribed, “Bad news, Birthday person . . . Apparently it is illegal to look as good as you,” the sheriff wrote, “So says the sheriff—see I told you it was good to be sheriff. Happy B-Day from the Sheriff, Mrs. Sheriff and the Little Sheriff . . . oh, yeah & Matthew too!”

That’s America’s Little Sheriff.



For more, see the Weekly’s online Sheriff’s Scandal Archive.



rscottmoxley@ocweekly.com

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