Orange County's long, disgusting law enforcement nightmare is finally over.
Disgraced ex-Sheriff Mike Carona, once absurdly hailed as “America's sheriff” by CNN's Larry King, is going to federal prison.
This morning an all Republican panel of federal judges at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 2009 jury conviction against Carona for witness tampering was valid.
Carona had argued it wasn't fair that FBI and IRS agents secretly recorded him repeatedly encouraging potential witnesses to give false testimony to a federal grand jury probing corruption at the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
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The Ninth Circuit panel called the argument “unavailing.”
“The government is pleased with the result,” Sagel told me in a telephone interview. “The Ninth Circuit decision affirms what we've been saying all along: federal law enforcement acted properly at all times.”
In April 2009, Judge Guilford sentenced Carona to serve 66 months in prison and pay a $125,000 fine. Guilford wanted him to begin serving his time immediately. But the federal appellate court granted Carona's request to remain free until his argument was considered.
Now that Carona–a notorious womanizer–has lost his appeal, Guilford likely will hold a hearing in coming weeks to determine what date the ex-sheriff must surrender to the federal Bureau of Prisons. He is expected to be housed at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Englewood in Littleton, Colorado, which has been named by MSN as one of “The Top Best Places to go to Prison” because of its abundance of games for inmates including ping-pong, foosball and pool.
Among Carona's prison buddies: Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron executive who enriched himself by violating insider trading laws.
Guilford sentenced Jaramillo to a 27-month sentence (and a $233,000 fine) for using his position as assistant sheriff to illegally enrich himself by accepting bribes.
Don Haidl, the wealthy used government car salesman who illegally funded Carona and Jaramillo's rise at the OCSD and was rewarded with full police powers and an assistant sheriff title, pleaded guilty to income evasion in the case. He escaped prison by secretly cooperating with federal agents.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
