Michael S Carona

Is Michael S. Carona required to step down as Orange County sheriff because he has been indicted? No. California law would force him out of his job only if he is convicted of a felony. Has an indicted sheriff ever remained in office? Yes. Two California sheriffs have been indicted on public corruption charges since 1989. Both stayed in office several months before resigning. Each was eventually convicted of the crimes. Can the Orange County Board of Supervisors force Carona out?

Orange County's former sheriff is waging a battle to be released from federal prison, where he is serving time for witness tampering in a corruption case that exposed wrongdoing in the state's second-largest sheriff's department. On Monday, a federal judge heard arguments on whether to resentence Michael S. Carona, once a rising political star before he was indicted in late 2007 in a sprawling corruption case. Carona's attorneys argued that the 66-month sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford on the one witness-tampering charge on which he was convicted should be adjusted based on changes in the law. About one year after Carona's sentencing, the Supreme Court narrowed a definition of corruption to just bribes and kickbacks.

There was no playbook for dealing with the public, no secret list of do's and don'ts squirreled away in a drawer just in case a 5-year-old girl was kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered. So Michael S. Carona, only a few months from the end of his first four-year term as Orange County sheriff, made up the playbook himself last week, using personal appearances to organize "a modern-day posse" of investigators, the media and the public in a desperate hunt for a little girl, then for her killer.

A federal appeals court Thursday upheld the witness-tampering conviction of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, but it remained unclear when he might have to begin serving his 5 1/2-year prison sentence. Carona has been free pending the ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Lawyers for the former sheriff acquitted of five other corruption counts had argued that jurors shouldn't have heard a secretly taped conversation in which Carona urged a colleague to lie to a grand jury on his behalf.

A federal judge Wednesday set June 10, 2008, for the trial of indicted Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, his wife, Deborah, and his former mistress, Debra V. Hoffman. The Caronas were also cleared to contact two people considered potential witnesses against them, including their tax preparer. U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford called the June date firm unless new charges were filed against the defendants or others were charged. Assistant U.S. Atty. Brett A.

A former Orange County Sheriff's lieutenant sued the county and Sheriff Michael S. Carona on Monday, saying he was unfairly demoted for criticizing the sheriff while campaigning against him for the department's top job last year. Bill Hunt was placed on administrative leave the day after the June 6, 2006, election in which Carona was reelected, narrowly avoiding a runoff with 50.9% of the vote. Hunt placed second in the four-way race, with 26.5%.

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona intends to return to work Monday, ending a 60-day paid leave of absence initiated after he was charged with corruption in a federal grand jury indictment. It remained unclear how much time Carona would spend in the sheriff's Santa Ana headquarters when he returns to work. In a statement, the department said Undersheriff Jo Ann Galisky would continue to handle day-to-day operations after Carona's return.

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona will run next year for a third term, saying he'll leave it to voters to decide if he should keep a job he pledged in 1998 that he'd hold only for two terms. His announcement ends speculation that he might give up his post and run for lieutenant governor, drawing on the popularity of his friend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two worked together in 2002 on the passage of Proposition 49, statewide funding for after-school programs.

Orange County Republican leaders delivered a narrow endorsement Monday to embattled Sheriff Michael S. Carona, one month after he lost the local party's backing in a close and contentious vote. Carona, who will face three challengers in the June election, barely won the two-thirds support he needed for the party's endorsement. He fell one vote shy of gaining the endorsement in March. Carona's campaign manager, former state Sen. John Lewis (R-Orange), said the action vindicated the sheriff.

An endorsement of Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona by the county Republican Party will stand, a judge ruled Monday. Orange County Superior Court Judge John M. Watson denied arguments by GOP committee member Tim Whitacre that the endorsement should be voided because of procedural errors. Whitacre is campaign spokesman for a rival sheriff's candidate, Lt. William Hunt.

Former Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl was sentenced Monday to two years' probation, a $40,000 fine and 200 hours of community service for tax fraud. Haidl, a Newport Beach businessman and onetime assistant to convicted former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, was accused of tax fraud in a scheme to help pay his son's legal bills in a sexual assault case. He was given probation rather than prison time because of his cooperation in the federal corruption case against Carona.

A onetime assistant sheriff and trusted aide of convicted former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona was sentenced Monday to 27 months in prison for scheming to defraud the public of honest services and filing a false tax return. In a voice husky with emotion, George Jaramillo apologized to the court and said, "I am here to say that I am profoundly sorry for what I have done. While I did not set out to commit crimes, my cavalier and irresponsible mode . . . was criminal." Carona appointed Jaramillo as assistant sheriff in 1999 and fired him in March 2004, after rumors spread that a federal investigation of the Sheriff's Department was underway.

Mike Carona's fall from "America's Sheriff" to convicted felon reached bottom Monday as a federal judge gave Orange County's former top law enforcement officer a half-hour lecture about honesty before sentencing him to 5 1/2 years in prison for attempting to obstruct a grand jury investigation. "I need a sheriff I can trust," U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford told Carona. "Lying will not be tolerated in this courtroom, especially by the county's highest-ranking law enforcement officer."

If a judge takes the lead from probation officers, former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona could face 6 1/2 years in prison for leaning on his assistant to lie to a grand jury that was investigating the administration of the state's second-largest sheriff's agency. A probation report, which recommends that the man once dubbed "America's sheriff" serve 78 months in federal prison for witness tampering, was issued last week and was immediately sealed.

A federal judge Thursday dismissed charges against the wife and former mistress of ex-Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, who was acquitted earlier this month of charges that he took bribes in exchange for the powers of his office. U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford ordered that related charges against Deborah Carona and Debra Hoffman be dropped, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Kenneth Julian.

Two jurors in the high-profile corruption trial of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona complained to the judge during deliberations that they felt intimidated and pressured to side with the ex-lawman, according to interviews and jurors' notes unsealed Wednesday. The revelations provide a glimpse into the strained and sometimes awkward deliberations that unfolded inside the jury room before the panel returned its verdict Friday and acquitted Carona of five felonies.

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona has been appointed to a senior advisory committee for President Bush's Department of Homeland Security. Carona will serve on the department's Emergency Services, Law Enforcement and Public Health and Hospitals committee, chief advisor Tom Ridge said Tuesday. Carona, who is also the county's emergency manager, will be one of 14 members representing the nation's emergency preparedness community.

A judge will consider Monday whether to overturn the endorsement of Sheriff Michael S. Carona by the Orange County Republican central committee. Tim Whitacre, a committee member backing Carona rival William Hunt for the June 6 election, sued the committee over the April endorsement, saying it violated party bylaws because candidates must be present for an endorsement vote and Carona wasn't. Superior Court Judge John Watson will hear the suit. William R.

They listened to the government's secretly recorded tapes over and over. They heard what the prosecution's star witness had to say and didn't believe him. Yet in the end, the jurors who acquitted former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona of five of six felonies Friday were most swayed by U.S. Dist. Judge Andrew Guilford's instruction that they must keep an eye on the calendar.