Legal News

Judge OK's playing secretly recorded conversations in Carona trial

By Jason Siegel

A federal judge ruled that prosecutors can play the secretly recorded conversations between ex-Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona and former Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl during Carona's corruption trial, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In the conversation, they allegedly discussed how to conceal illegal cash payments and gifts. Carona's lawyers argued that it was wrong for federal prosecutors to ask Haidl to secretly record the conversations.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford ruled (here) that federal prosecutors broke state bar Rules 2-100 but that the act wasn't egregious enough and "the harm caused by suppression is too high a price to pay." He suggested filing a complaint for the State Bar could discipline the attorneys, as one of "the less extreme remedies than supression."

Guilford also granted Deborah Carona's motion to be tried separately. She argued that she might have to make incriminating statements about her husband in her defense.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 05, 2008 (boomark / email).