Jeff Rawitz: Why did you say Joe Cavallo is a women hater [during an FBI secretly recorded conversation]?
Don Haidl: Joe Cavallo has been in my presence when he's been short and rude to women . . . I don't know if he hates all women in the world.
Rawitz: [Nods]
Haidl: He's been rude to men too.
Rawitz, smiling: So we can say he's just rude?
Haidl: Yes sir.
–Rawitz, defense counsel for indicted ex-Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, today questioning ex-Assistant Sheriff Haidl, who hired feisty defense lawyer Cavallo to represent his teenage son on gang rape charges in 2002. Cavallo–longtime drinking pals with Carona–was convicted last year in a bail bonds scheme. He's also a witness in what federal prosecutors say was Carona's conspiracy to enrich himself, his wife and a mistress on Haidl bribes and kickbacks. Haidl admits his crimes. Despite being caught discussing “untraceable cash” with Haidl last year, Carona continues to insist he's an angel.
(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.