Former Orange County Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo is once again a loser.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Jaramillo’s contention that a $50,000 fine imposed during a corruption conviction by U.S. District Court Judge Andrew J. Guilford was vindictive.
Jaramillo served as second in command of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) during the soiled Sheriff Mike Carona regime that ended with Carona, Jaramillo and Don Haidl, a Rancho Cucamonga used car salesman who bought an assistant sheriff’s job with bribes, all earning corruption convictions.
Jaramillo has already completed a state prison sentence and a federal prison sentence. Carona continues to serve his 66-month punishment in a Colorado federal prison. Haidl, who agreed to testify against Carona in exchange for no jail time, is dead.
In Jaramillo’s case, Guilford made no secret of his opposition to the ex-assistant sheriff profiting in any way from criminal acts. Defense lawyers claimed that the judge acted unreasonably. But a three-judge federal appellate panel–Richard R. Clifton, Consuelo Maria Callahan and Arthur Lawrence Alarcon–wasn’t impressed by the argument and noted Guilford followed sentencing rules.
Jaramillo signed a guilty plea for income tax evasion with federal prosecutors Brett Sagel and Ken Julian as well as investigating FBI and IRS criminal division agents.
The Carona/Jaramillo/Haidl era produced numerous revelations about the extent of corrupt inside the OCSD and, in particular, among the department’s helicopter and plane units, which continue to operate government aircraft with no meaningful oversight.
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.