Court Upholds Carona's Conviction

Orange County - A federal appeals court upheld the witness-tampering conviction of former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona. Carona had argued that investigators acted unethically in his case.

The former sheriff was convicted Jan. 16, 2009, of trying to get ex-assistant sheriff Don Haidl to lie during a federal grand jury probe.

He was acquitted of multiple federal corruption charges accusing him of accepting cash and gifts in exchange for allowing access to the powers and resources of his office.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford sentenced Carona to 5 1/2 years in federal prison, but he has remained free on bond pending his appeal.

Carona's attorneys appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing in part that prosecutors violated a rule of judicial ethics by contacting Carona after creating a bogus subpoena used by Haidl to encourage the then-sheriff to talk candidly about graft in his office on tape.

Defense attorneys unsuccessfully argued at trial that the Haidl tape should not be allowed as evidence because of prosecutorial misconduct. Guilford ruled there was some misconduct, but would not toss the tape and referred the investigation of prosecutorial misconduct to the California State Bar. The Bar did not find any misconduct.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also found that they did not believe there was any misconduct.

"Carona contends, among other things, that the evidence should have been suppressed and that the lead prosecutor should have been disqualified," the appeals panel wrote.

"We conclude, however, that the actions of the prosecutors did not violate Rule 2-100 and, further, that the district court properly denied suppression of the evidence even if there had been a violation of Rule 2-100."

Carona was Orange County's sheriff from 1999 to 2008.