Everybody is criticizing Sheriff Mike Carona’s decision to retaliate against his opponent/lieutenant Bill Hunt after last week’s election. I even saw Jo Ellen Allen, the vice Chair of the OC GOP, on KOCE’s “Real Orange†this week struggling to find something positive to say about the current state of our Sheriff’s department.
This is a transparent case of intimidation, and the only real argument Carona supporters could use as ammunition was taken away today by an OC Register article. On Real Orange, Jo Ellen said that she felt Carona was making a dumb decision by putting Hunt on administrative leave, but since Carona is so moral, polite, respectable, sincere, blah, blah, he waited until after the election to start getting dirty with Hunt.
Now turn to the Peggy Lowe story in the Register this morning. Peggy writes that Carona was throwing his weight around way back in Marchâ€â€three months before the election. [Link]
The pre-election inquiry was seen as intimidating to Hunt and the deputies supporting him, said Judi Fouladi, Hunt’s attorney.
“We knew going into this it was entirely a set-up for violating a direct order and if there was anything the sheriff could do to bring the appearance of violating a direct order, that would be all over the press,†she said.