The Carona Trial-The Defense (Sort of)

I'll say!


With the prosecution having rested without calling Mike Carona's former sleazeball Asst. Sheriff George Jaramillo to the stand, the defense is now scrambling to find someone to testify on behalf of the disgraced former sheriff in his federal corruption trial.

Brian Sun, one of Carona's attorneys is complaining to the judge that most witnesses he would like to call to the stand are getting out of Dodge before the subpoenas arrive. Those that he has been able to collar have basically painted a negative picture of prosecution witnesses like Jaramillo, Don Haidl and suspended attorney Joe Cavallo. Of course, everyone already knows that those guys are sleazeballs. The defense has, however, managed to cast doubt on one aspect of Haidl's testimony when he tried to imply that he had never passed on illegal contributions to other politicians before his involvement with Carona.

One witness, a certain Albert Hanna, testified this week that he gave Jaramillo a job with his finance company after he (Jaramillo) had been fired by Carona. In addition, Hanna also gave jobs to Jaramillo's wife, sister-in-law, cousin and the cousin's wife. When asked how it all went, Hanna sighed, "he ended up introducing Joe Cavallo to my (then) wife, and things went downhill from there."

Of course, once the defense attorneys have finished convincing the jurors that all of the people Carona surrounded himself with (and have turned against him) are sewer rats, they will then have to deal with the irrefutable fact that their client.....surrounded himself with sewer rats.