Yesterday, the presiding judge in the federal corruption case against former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona ruled that recorded tapes of conversations between Carona and cooperating witness, Don Haidl, would be admissible in the trial. In those conversations, Carona and Haidl discussed how to keep monies that Haidl had paid to Carona secret from the Grand Jury. Carona's attorneys had argued that the tapes violated the rules because Carona had been represented by a lawyer at the time. On the tapes, Carona can be heard telling Haidl that the money was "completely untraceable". (Don Haidl was a wealthy car auctioneer who Carona appointed as Assistant Sheriff, and whose son, Greg, was convicted of rape a couple of years back.)
The judge also separated the trial of Carona's wife, Debbie from that of her husband and his mistress, Debra Hoffman. So now, Carona, who previously painted himself a "Christian family man", will be tried along with his mistress while his wife will be tried alone. Got it?
Still pending is a decision by the judge to move the trial, scheduled for August, outside of Orange County due to critical comments about Carona made on the John and Ken radio show on KFI in Los Angeles. The two radio jocks, for months, have lambasted Carona and read the taped transcripts over the air. More recently, they have recruited listeners to read the transcripts over the air in various foreign languages, like Hebrew, Arabic and French. Carona's attorneys want to move the trial to some part of California where KFI is not heard.
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