Posted: 3/18/2004 3:03:37 PM EDT
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Orange County sheriff fires second-in-command The Associated Press SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona announced Wednesday that he has fired Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo, his second-in-command. Jaramillo, 43, joined the department in 1999 and his tenure was marked with several controversies, including a grand jury investigation into whether he interfered with a criminal investigation involving the son of another assistant sheriff. Jaramillo also paid the county $241 last year after sheriff's officials learned that he used a sheriff's helicopter to shuttle him and his wife to Long Beach Airport for a flight to a White House event. The sheriff's department in an statement said that Jaramillo "has been released from his at-will position" and stated that Carona made the decision after reevaluating his executive team. Carona recognized Jaramillo's service to the department and community and thanked him for his contributions, the statement said. Jon Fleischman, a sheriff's spokesman, said the controversies surrounding Jaramillo had nothing to do with his firing. "The sole reason was the sheriff's re-evaluation of his team," Fleischman said. Jaramillo in 1998 joined Carona's campaign to succeed longtime Sheriff Brad Gates. He previously had been a patrolman and sergeant in Garden Grove and ran his own private law practice. Last year, he was accused by Newport Beach Police Chief Bob McDonnell of tampering with an investigation of Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl's son, Greg, who has been charged with two other youths for allegedly raping an unconscious teenage girl at Haidl's home in July 2002 and videotaping it. McDonnell sent Carona a letter saying Jaramillo advised Greg Haidl against giving a statement to his department's detectives. In an audio tape obtained by KCBS-TV last year also, Jaramillo and two other sheriff's officials can be heard discussing how to silence another incident involving Greg Haidl and marijuana. "Listen, listen," Jaramillo says on the tape. "The press would be all over this ... so we gotta make sure this stays ..." "I know," a lieutenant responds. "It won't be put on the log or anything, and the chief's gonna know and that's our secret." I wonder if Haidles neck is next on the chopping block? |
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SLIGHTLY off topic here but if Carona said he had to go... then it was time. Carona is VERY fair. I have heard other deputies that just absolutely love the job this man is doing. Unlike the LAPD and Parks... Well, now they have Bratton which IMHO is another political hack. |
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I'm somewhat suprised this made national news. It's an AP story, which i found in a Florida newspaper. Carona is friends with the Ca Govn'r, and had a rather long sit down with GWB following the Samantha Runion murder. I suspect he is being groomed for bigger things than OC Sheriff. |
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Quoted: I'm somewhat suprised this made national news. It's an AP story, which i found in a Florida newspaper. Carona is friends with the Ca Govn'r, and had a rather long sit down with GWB following the Samantha Runion murder. I suspect he is being groomed for bigger things than OC Sheriff. For some of you folks in cyberspace who don't know who Orange County(Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm etc) Sheriff Mike Corona is, he is very pro-CCW. He told one guy I know, "just give me an excuse to give you a CCW." Mike Corona is as close to a pro-gun big-city sheriff as we will ever get in Southern Kali-fornia. |