Thirteen years ago, Tony Rackauckas began his first term as Orange County District Attorney with a series of breathtaking ethical lapses. Rackauckas ordered the agency's organized-crime detectives to not investigate Newport Beach businessman Patrick N. DiCarlo, his fishing buddy and campaign chairman who had suspicious contacts with East Coast mafia associates. He looked the other way when Southern California apartment-complex magnate George Argyros, one of his ultra-wealthy campaign backers, cheated thousands of low-income tenants out of their security deposits. When British Petroleum's ARCO service stations ignored for a decade clean-up notices to fix more than 132 massive gas-storage leaks throughout the county, he let the company off without admitting its guilt or paying county residents a nickel for callously polluting our environment and jeopardizing our... More >>>