In a small, square room with a view of the Hollywood Hills, KFI's John and Ken spend hours needling public officials and tossing out satirical and sometimes sophomoric lines that reach an estimated 1 million listeners per month.
Now, the radio provocateurs may have a surprisingly significant impact on the prosecution of a man who was once Orange County's most powerful law enforcement officer.
This week, attorneys for former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona asked a federal judge to move his corruption trial out of Southern California to increase the odds of finding jurors who have not been tainted by the daily commute-hour banter of hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou.
Their shtick includes daily readings from a secretly recorded conversation in which Carona allegedly discussed concealing evidence that he accepted cash and gifts while running the state's second-largest sheriff's department.
During the readings, they have portrayed Carona and his former aide as "Sopranos"-style wise guys scheming to deceive prying FBI agents -- which, perhaps not by coincidence, is precisely the way federal prosecutors want jurors to see them.
They have also coached listeners to lie to get onto the jury by asserting in court that they don't listen to the program. The readings have been so constant and so inflammatory that Carona's attorneys say the former sheriff can't receive a fair trial anywhere within reach of KFI-AM (640), which is considerable.
Carona, his wife, Deborah, and former mistress, Debra V. Hoffman, are accused of selling the power of the sheriff's office for tens of thousands of dollars in unreported cash and gifts. The trial is scheduled for Aug. 26 and U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford has not ruled on the request to move it.
During an advertising break in a recent broadcast, the hosts sat around a crescent-shaped desk and said they would feel no responsibility if the trial were moved because of them.
"We didn't file the motion. We didn't do this to get the trial moved," Chiampou said. "I think the judge is a baby if he grants it."
Kobylt said the Carona case was a natural for them. They had broadcast about past allegations of Carona's sexual exploits and covered the gang sexual assault trial of the son of Donald Haidl, a former assistant sheriff who secretly recorded the conversation with Carona.
