Firm Will Pay $60,000 in Suit Over Guards at Polls

The security firm hired by the Orange County Republican Party to stop non-citizens from voting last fall agreed Tuesday to pay $60,000 to six plaintiffs who claimed in a lawsuit that their civil rights were violated.

The settlement, which must be approved by U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts in Santa Ana, was disclosed in court Tuesday.

The security guard controversy grew out of one of last fall’s most bitterly contested Orange County elections, leading to an FBI investigation and the introduction of state legislation that would outlaw unsanctioned guards at polling places.

The lawsuit alleged that the guards, who were carrying signs in Spanish admonishing non-citizens not to vote, intimidated first-time Latino voters and may have frightened them away from the polls. It asked that the election results be overturned.

Only One to Settle

Of the various defendants in the suit, only the security company has settled. Letts indicated he will not permit other defendants, including Assemblymen Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) and John Lewis (R-Orange), to make claims that the security firm is more at fault than they are and should pay any damages.

In effect, lawyers in the case said, the judge was ruling that the individual actions of Saddleback Security Services Corp. employees who may have violated the election code are a separate issue from whether Pringle, Lewis and county Republican Party officials intended to influence the outcome of the election.

San Francisco attorney Kathleen Purcell, who is representing the six plaintiffs, all voters who encountered guards at polling places, said Tuesday that she is pleased with the proposed settlement. “It’s a fairly substantial sum of money,� Purcell said.

But David A. Robinson, attorney for Pringle and Lewis, was irked both by the settlement and the judge’s statements and said he would appeal.

“The settlement shows that the plaintiffs are merely out to put money in their pockets,� Robinson said. “We also think that the judge is dead wrong. . . . He abused his authority� in not allowing the other defendants to make claims against Saddleback Security in this case.

Bruce Gridley, attorney for Saddleback Security, said the firm agreed to the settlement--without acknowledging any wrongdoing-- out of a realization that it was not economical to prolong the dispute. Legal costs, he said, have already exceeded the amount of the settlement.

The uniformed guards were stationed at polling places in 20 largely Latino precincts in Santa Ana on Election Day. The guards were hired by the county GOP at the suggestion of a political consultant for Pringle, who ended up winning the costly 72nd Assembly District election by fewer than 900 votes.

Thomas A. Fuentes, the county Republican chairman who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, has said he authorized about $4,000 in party money to hire the guards because of rumors that illegal voters were to be bused in to tip the election in favor of the Democratic candidate, Christian F. (Rick) Thierbach.