Countywide : Ex-Supervisor Roth Meets Fine Deadline

Former Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth, convicted last month of political ethics law violations, met Monday’s deadline to pay half the $50,000 fine levied against him, officials said.

Roth attorney Paul S. Meyer said “the majority” of the payment--and perhaps the entire amount--came from Roth’s leftover campaign funds. But Meyer said he was not certain of the exact amount that came out of Roth’s campaign account.

The 71-year-old Roth has used that same campaign account, amassed during more than six years as a county supervisor, to pay legal bills arising from the case for both himself and county aides.

Roth’s lawyers delivered a cashier’s check April 19 to the Orange County Municipal Court in Santa Ana for $25,050. That represented half the fine, plus a $50 penalty assessed under a state victims’ restitution program.

Under the terms of his sentence, Roth must pay the second half of the fine by Oct. 25.

With Roth’s campaign account now largely depleted, Meyer said the balance of the fine is “a personal obligation that Don Roth will have to meet.” But he added that Roth is still considering a fund-raising party to help him pay the rest of the fine.

Judge Richard W. Stanford Jr. imposed the fine and other penalties March 25 as part of a plea agreement reached between Roth and the Orange County district attorney’s office. The arrangement capped an 11-month investigation that had rocked county government.

Roth pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanors for failing to report a housing loan, home improvements, trips, golf outings, and other gifts from community members, then later voting on matters before the Board of Supervisors that affected the donors. Many of the allegations were first raised in a series of reports in The Times.

Stanford also sentenced Roth to 200 hours of community service. In an April 20 progress report on that part of the sentence, Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy N. Ormes contended that the hours Roth has recently spent at the Boys & Girls Club of Anaheim helping organize a golf tournament “cannot be counted as part of the 200 ordered by the court.”

Instead, Ormes said, prosecutors expect Roth to perform “physical labor” helping the club relocate to a new building later this year and perhaps painting out graffiti. Roth accepted the physical labor requirement as part of the plea agreement.

Meyer said that Roth will satisfy the physical labor requirement by the Oct. 25 deadline.