A jury acquitted former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona of charges that he took bribes in exchange for the power of his office, a verdict that stunned the courtroom and was hailed by the elated defendant as "an absolute miracle." Carona was convicted of one witness-tampering count, but the jury rejected the heart of a case that federal prosecutors spent five years assembling against the former head of the nation's fifth-largest sheriff's department.
He had been accused of doing favors for a multimillionaire businessman and appointing him assistant sheriff in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts. Several jurors said they believed Carona was involved in misconduct but that the government hadn't proven its case.
Carona, 53, began shaking as the verdicts were being read in U.S. District Court, then put his head down on the counsel table and sobbed loudly.
In the gallery, his wife, Deborah, and friends gasped. "Oh my God!" blurted his wife, who, along with her husband's ex-mistress, faces related charges.
The conspiracy charge alone alleged 64 overt criminal acts. Although the statute of limitations expired on most of those acts, the jury only had to find one of the remaining acts true for a conspiracy conviction.
"If you all don't believe in miracles, if you don't believe in God, what you just witnessed was an absolute miracle and God is watching over me," Carona said later. "Based on what you heard in this trial, some of the salacious stuff, there's a lot of things I need to apologize for in my life. I've made some mistakes along the way. The good news is God forgives people and apparently I'm one of the people he forgave."
If convicted of all counts, Carona could have spent the rest of his life in prison. Instead, he faces up to 20 years, but is likely to get only two or three, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Julian. The defense said probation is possible.
Several jurors said they believe the allegations against Carona but could not find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt because they considered businessman Don Haidl - the government's chief witness and the sheriff's alleged benefactor - to be untrustworthy. They also wanted to hear from another witness who was said to be the conduit for payments to the sheriff but was not called by the government.
"In my mind there's no doubt that he did what he did, but we have to go by what the law said," juror Jim Ybarra said. "They were obviously in some kind of cahoots and everybody felt that."
The jury, which had deliberated since Jan. 8 after a 10-week trial, found Carona not guilty of one count of conspiracy, three counts of mail fraud and one count of witness tampering.
His lone witness-tampering conviction involved a secretly recorded conversation in which he attempted to persuade Haidl to match their stories in front of the grand jury. Haidl, who was named as an unindicted coconspirator in the case, reached a plea deal with prosecutors in exchange for his cooperation.
Defense attorney Jeff Rawitz said he will appeal the conviction and has filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the entire case on grounds of egregious grand jury conduct.
Prosecutor Julian said he was disappointed at the outcome but was pleased by jurors' comments.
"What I heard from the jurors was they thought the charged conduct had occurred but the indictment was brought too late and they had to follow the law, and we'll respect that," he said.
The judge said Carona could be released on bond, with restrictions against travel.
Carona, once dubbed "America's sheriff" by CNN's Larry King for helping put away a child murderer, was indicted in October 2007 and retired three months later.
The government charged in 1998, the year he was first elected, Carona solicited Haidl's help to launder at least $30,000 in campaign contributions.
Once elected, Carona rewarded Haidl with the post of assistant sheriff, prosecutors said. Haidl received a car, a gun, a badge, a "get-out-of-jail-free" card, and control over a new reserve deputy program that allowed him to hand out law enforcement badges to his friends, relatives and associates, the government said.
Haidl continued to bribe Carona once in office by paying him $1,000 a month, paying for luxurious trips and tailored suits, lending Carona his yacht and private jet and bailing out Carona's mistress and her foundering law firm with a questionable bridge loan, the government said.
The prosecution contended that Haidl's gifts to Carona exceeded $430,000 over several years.
Haidl eventually became a government informant, along with another former assistant sheriff and Carona's one-time campaign manager, George Jaramillo. Both men reached plea deals with prosecutors.
Haidl wore a wire to three meetings with Carona in summer 2007, producing hours of profanity-laced audio tapes that were repeatedly played at trial. Haidl spent 10 days on the witness stand but Jaramillo did not testify.
Ybarra, the juror, said putting Jaramillo on the stand "would have made a huge difference" because Haidl testified he funneled all payments to Carona through Jaramillo.
Haidl continued to bribe Carona once in office by paying him $1,000 a month, paying for luxurious trips and tailored suits, lending Carona his yacht and private jet and bailing out Carona's mistress and her foundering law firm with a questionable bridge loan, the government said.
The prosecution contended that Haidl's gifts to Carona exceeded $430,000 over several years.
Haidl eventually became a government informant, along with another former assistant sheriff and Carona's one-time campaign manager, George Jaramillo. Both men reached plea deals with prosecutors.
Haidl wore a wire to three meetings with Carona in summer 2007, producing hours of profanity-laced audio tapes that were repeatedly played at trial. Haidl spent 10 days on the witness stand but Jaramillo did not testify.
Ybarra, the juror, said putting Jaramillo on the stand "would have made a huge difference" because Haidl testified he funneled all payments to Carona through Jaramillo.
Julian said the decision not to call Jaramillo as a witness was a strategic one.
Jaramillo, like Haidl a former assistant sheriff, was listed as an unindicted coconspirator in Carona's indictment and was fired by Carona in 2004 for misconduct. He reached a plea deal in the current federal case and has also served time in state prison for unrelated felony charges.
Ybarra said the jury also was frustrated that the statute of limitations left only five acts to consider for a conspiracy. Three other acts fingered other members of the alleged conspiracy.
"If they had issued that indictment in June that would have brought in about 30 other overt acts and we could have been able to find him guilty," said Ybarra, 54, a teacher from Garden Grove.
Carona's former mistress, Debra Hoffman, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and bankruptcy fraud. His wife is charged with a single count of conspiracy.
The women are facing trial together, but Julian said the government was reviewing what to do with the two remaining defendan
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