George Jaramillo isn't on trial, but the former assistant Orange County sheriff has been taking his lumps in the federal courtroom where jurors are listening to the government's corruption case against his former boss, Mike Carona.
It seems that just about every time jurors hear something unflattering about Carona, Jaramillo's name also pops up. And sometimes, even when the testimony doesn't seem to damage Carona.
Jaramillo is on the government's witness list to testify against the former sheriff, but Assistant U.S. Atty. Brett Sagel told the judge a couple of weeks ago he hadn't decided if he'd call him.
From the outset of the trial, Jaramillo has been portrayed as the right-hand man who knew where all the bodies in the Carona administration were buried. And who, after Carona fired him in 2004, turned on his former "brother" and began cooperating with the government.
He's been described on various occasions in court as evil, a pickpocket, hatchet man, bag man, out of control, a double-crosser, a thief and an extortionist. Not to mention someone who didn't mind tipping off the media if it served his purposes.
Most of those characterizations came from the government's star witness: former Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, a one-time friend of Jaramillo's. But Sagel contributed a couple of his own, as did Carona on a secretly tape-recorded conversation he had with Haidl in 2007.
The onslaught against Jaramillo -- which he's had no chance to rebut -- is unnerving if only because Carona early on planned that Jaramillo would succeed him as sheriff.
Like Haidl, Jaramillo already has pleaded to federal charges in connection with the Carona case. Haidl pleaded guilty to a single count of filing a false tax return, and Jaramillo has pleaded to filing a false return and failing to disclose numerous payments or gifts while assistant sheriff. Both are awaiting sentencing.
In January 2007, Jaramillo pleaded no contest to perjury and misuse of a county helicopter on charges stemming from an Orange County grand jury investigation. He received a year's jail sentence.
Haidl testified that he and his family became good friends with the Carona and Jaramillo families shortly after meeting them in the months leading up to Carona's successful run for sheriff in 1998. It was Jaramillo, Haidl testified, who first brought up the idea of raising $30,000 in campaign contributions. Carona joined the conversation shortly, Haidl testified, and the three later discussed how to skirt campaign finance laws. It also was Jaramillo, Haidl testified, who told him that he would "own the Sheriff's Department" if he joined the Carona-Jaramillo team.
