Baugh Campaign Worker Testifies That He Followed Carmony’s Orders

SANTA ANA — A former campaign worker for Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) testified Monday that he was heeding instructions from defendant Rhonda Carmony when he recruited and then collected signatures for Laurie Campbell to run as a decoy Democratic candidate in a crucial 1995 election.

Richard Martin, who pleaded guilty last year for his role in the Republican scheme to splinter the Democratic vote, testified he warned Carmony that it would be “politically risky” for someone from the Baugh campaign to circulate petitions for Campbell.

But Martin testified that Carmony brushed aside his warnings, saying that political and financial backing for Baugh would not materialize if he didn’t help in the effort to get a second Democrat on the ballot.

“Rhonda Carmony told me that [Assemblyman] Curt Pringle’s staff, namely [chief of staff] Jeff Flint, would be convinced that I couldn’t be trusted, that I would not be willing to do the work needed,” he said. “She also indicated that the [California Independent Business] PAC would not give us financing, and that [the blame] would fall squarely on my shoulders.”

At the time, Baugh was a political neophyte running to replace maverick Republican Doris Allen, who had outraged many of her fellow Republicans by getting herself elected Assembly Speaker largely with Democratic votes.

Documents presented in court during Martin’s testimony also showed that Baugh, who has maintained that he had nothing to do Campbell’s candidacy, apparently telephoned her four times on Sept. 21, 1995--the day she filed her candidate petitions just before the final deadline.

Phone records show that calls were made to Campbell’s work number from Baugh’s home phone and his cellular phone at 11:01 for three minutes, at 1:40 for two minutes, at 2:13 for four minutes and at 2:35 for two minutes. Within 90 minutes of the final call, Campbell drove to the Registrar of Voters office and met in the parking lot with several GOP aides who had circulated her nominating papers.

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Martin is the third GOP aide to testify at Carmony’s trial that she was a key figure in the scheme.

Carmony, 27, is charged with three felonies: falsely making a nominating petition, falsely filing a nominating petition and conspiring to falsely file a nominating petition.

Prosecutors allege that Carmony persuaded other Republican workers to gather Democratic voters’ signatures on Campbell’s nominating petitions, knowing that they would not sign as the petitions’ circulators as required by law. While it is not against the law to recruit a decoy candidate, it is illegal to falsify nominating petitions.

The defense has said Carmony had at most a minimal role in the effort and that the scheme was orchestrated by Jeff Flint, who at the time was Pringle’s chief of staff. Pringle wanted to replace Allen with a loyal Republican and become Assembly Speaker, which he did after Baugh’s election.

Martin testified that he first talked with Campbell about the GOP’s search for a spoiler candidate during a party at Baugh’s house Labor Day Weekend. “She volunteered to run as a Democrat,” he testified.

Martin, who was working with Carmony in the Baugh campaign, said that a few days before the Sept. 21 filing deadline he told Carmony about the conversation with Campbell.

“Rhonda Carmony told me to get hold of Laurie Campbell and ask if she was still interested in running,” Martin testified. Baugh was Rohrabacher’s hand-picked candidate. Carmony is Rohrabacher’s campaign director and is now his fiancee.

Martin testified that after Campbell agreed to run, he gathered signatures from Democrats for Campbell on Sept. 20 in a Huntington Beach neighborhood and on Sept. 21 outside a Post Office.

He warned Carmony twice about the plan’s problems, he testified, saying “it could destroy” the Baugh campaign if Baugh workers were discovered to have recruited a decoy Democrat. He also resisted gathering signatures for Campbell because he was listed as a circulator for Baugh.