A Newport Beach millionaire testified Wednesday that he illegally pumped tens of thousands of dollars into former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona's 1998 campaign -- all with Carona's blessing.
Donald Haidl, a key government witness in Carona's corruption trial, said he was told that if he raised $30,000 in political donations for Carona, he would own the Sheriff's Department and "there would be 1,800 guns and 5,000 employees at my disposal."
The problem was, Orange County law limited campaign donations to $1,000 per person. To get around that limit, Carona directed him to find 30 trusted people to write $1,000 checks to the campaign and then reimburse them himself in cash, "so it was untraceable," Haidl testified.
In the months that followed, Haidl said, he collected checks from relatives and employees of his companies and then secretly reimbursed them in cash as Carona and his campaign manager, George Jaramillo, had instructed.
He said Carona told him to find "people who could keep their mouths shut and wouldn't say anything."
Orange County's former sheriff, along with a onetime mistress, Debra V. Hoffman, are on trial on charges that they and others sold Carona's influence for tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from Haidl and other wealthy businessmen.
Corona's wife, Deborah, is also charged in the conspiracy and awaits a separate trial.
Haidl, who made his fortune auctioning cars from government agencies, has pleaded guilty to tax charges and has been cooperating with the government for nearly two years.
During the government's investigation, Haidl said, he agreed to secretly wear a wire in three meetings with Carona in the summer of 2007.
His testimony and the tapes from those meetings with the sheriff are central to the government's case. The recordings, which allegedly capture Carona trying to cover up more than $40,000 in cash payments and other questionable activity involving Haidl, are not expected to be played in court until next week.
On Wednesday, Haidl told jurors that he met Carona and Jaramillo, an attorney who also went on to become an assistant Orange County sheriff, during a poolside lunch at Haidl's Newport Beach home in 1998.
"I was very, very impressed. He was very, very charming, able to adapt to questions, circumstances, people's personalities, an unbelievable speaker," Haidl recalled. "He was just a charmer."
