Baugh Enters Not Guilty Pleas to 12 Charges

SANTA ANA —  A Superior Court judge Monday tentatively set a June 8 trial date for Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), who faces charges he falsified campaign reports during his first campaign for office.

Baugh pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday morning to two felony perjury counts and 10 misdemeanor violations of the Campaign Reform Act stemming from the 1995 election, which gave Republicans control of the Assembly for the first time in 20 years.

Judge Francisco Briseno scheduled motions in the case for March 30. Baugh’s lawyer said he will ask that the charges be dismissed.

Baugh, 35, has acknowledged mistakes were made by his campaign, but he has insisted that he broke no laws because he relied on the advice of others and acted in good faith in filing his campaign finance reports.

Baugh won the election, then provided the vote to elect Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) speaker of the Assembly. Pringle no longer is speaker.

Prosecutors allege Baugh lied on campaign reports to conceal his role in a Republican scheme to split the Democratic vote by placing a decoy Democrat on the ballot in the crucial election to recall and replace Republican Assemblywoman Doris Allen, who Democrats had installed as speaker.

The June trial date would place the trial after the upcoming GOP primary. Baugh, as the incumbent in 1996, easily beat two GOP challengers in that year’s primary.

If convicted of a felony, Baugh would lose his Assembly compensation and membership on committees, Assembly officials said. The Assembly could decide whether he should be removed from office.

If convicted of a misdemeanor, Baugh could not run for office for four years and could be disciplined by the state bar.

The heart of the case is the prosecution’s contention that Baugh falsified several reports to hide from voters “his active involvement” in placing his friend Laurie Campbell on the ballot “to split the Democratic vote and help ensure his win over three other Republicans,” court papers allege. The two felony charges and three of the misdemeanor counts relate to that allegation.

Baugh also faces trial on seven other charges, including allegations that he inflated the balance reported in his campaign account by lying about the dates he returned $27,000 in loans.

He is also accused of failing to deposit $11,000 in campaign funds to his campaign account, making a $6,000 campaign expenditure from his personal account and improperly accepting $8,800 in cash from a friend.

Baugh has said the errors were largely the result of mistakes and bad advice from his campaign treasurer, Dan Traxler. He also has maintained that because he had no criminal intent, the case should be handled administratively by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which oversees the Campaign Reform Act.

Briseno is familiar with much of the case. He presided at the mistrial last year of GOP aide Rhonda Carmony, who was involved in the GOP effort to place Campbell on the ballot. Carmony, wife of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and a campaign aide to Baugh in 1995, pleaded guilty in December to falsifying and filing false nomination papers for Campbell.

Baugh had faced five felony perjury counts and 13 misdemeanor charges in the case, but one-third of those charges--including three felony counts--were dismissed last year at a preliminary hearing.