Carona’s Jail Time

If we needed any more indication (which we don’t) that former OC Sheriff Mike Carona was a creep and a weasel, the recent and horrifying OC jail revelations make clear the extent of his inexcusable mismanagement.

Here’s some of what the LA Times had to say in this morning’s editorial on the subject:

Newly released grand jury transcripts provide terrifying insight into life inside Orange County jails. There is the shocking admission by one deputy that “inmates do run the jail system.” There is the callous indifference of deputies watching television and text-messaging while inmates ran amok, of deputies so committed to evading their responsibilities that they devised a code to alert one another when supervisors were coming. There is the haunting realization that while those deputies snickered and ducked their duties, an inmate was sodomized and beaten to death. And then, as has so often been the case when there is disgrace in Orange County, there are the actions of its fallen sheriff, Michael S. Carona.

Carona’s first offense was to treat the inmate’s killing as an internal matter and to fend off outside investigation. Then the Sheriff’s Department, continuing its emphasis on secrecy over safety, fought media requests for copies of the grand jury transcripts — a natural if abhorrent impulse, given that members of the department lied to the panel and tampered with witnesses, among other offenses. But it was only this week, after a judge overruled the department, that the full extent of Carona’s misuse of his office became apparent.

As the transcripts reveal, on Jan. 15, Carona was summoned to the grand jury and asked to testify about the death of John Derek Chamberlain, who was brutalized and killed while deputies ignored his cries. At that session, Carona, who earlier had resigned, agreed to spell his name and to tell the truth. But when asked whether he would cooperate, Corona responded: “On advice of counsel, I respectfully wish to rely on my 5th Amendment right and decline to answer this question.” He was asked nine more times, and Corona invoked his right in each instance. Finally, he was dismissed….

Read the rest here.