Ex-Registrar Enters Plea of Innocent on 27 Counts

Former San Diego County Registrar Ray Ortiz pleaded innocent Monday to charges of grand theft and misappropriating public funds, insisting that he had done nothing wrong and that his indictment was the product of his innovations in office.

“You lead the pack and sometimes people don’t know where you’re leading,” Ortiz told reporters gathered outside the courtroom where San Diego County Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman had released him on $10,000 bail. “So they ask questions.”

A county grand jury indicted Ortiz on Thursday on 27 felony counts in connection with allegedly false bills submitted to the county through a Los Angeles firm that once printed the county’s sample election ballots.

Two others charged in the indictment also pleaded innocent Monday. Maria Caldera, a longtime friend of Ortiz, is accused of three counts of grand theft. Lance Gough, an elections consultant sporadically employed by the county during the last two years, is charged with one count of grand theft.

Ortiz, 52, appeared in court briefly Monday after driving back to San Diego with his wife, Barbara, from Pennsylvania, where he is employed by a firm that manufactures election equipment. He insisted there was “no chance” he would enter into a plea bargain with prosecutors and expressed confidence that he will be vindicated as the case wears on.

“I do know we are very honest in our dealings,” said Ortiz, who resigned as registrar of voters Sept. 1, while a criminal investigation of his office was pending. “We’ve done the proper things at the proper times under the contracting rules that existed at the moment. We’ve done a very good job.”

The indictment focuses on six transactions with Jeffries Banknote Co. of Los Angeles between May, 1984, and June, 1986. The company printed the county’s sample ballots from 1983 until earlier this year.

In three transactions, Ortiz is accused of directing the firm to pay Caldera or Gough as consultants and then bill the county for the payments through its printing contract. Ortiz allegedly received at least $2,900 of the money paid to Caldera.

In the other three transactions, Jeffries paid for trips taken by Ortiz and others to Chicago, New Orleans and Redding, Calif., then recovered the expenses by submitting false bills to the county, allegedly at Ortiz’s direction.

The company has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Ortiz said he looks forward to having a chance to tell his version of the events that led to his indictment and again criticized county officials for launching an investigation of his activities without giving him a chance to explain his conduct.

“Maybe if I’d been given a chance by the county administration to explain some of this, things wouldn’t have gone so far,” he said.

At the time of Ortiz’s resignation, county Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey said the investigation of the registrar’s office had been conducted confidentially to avert allegations of a cover-up.

Prosecutors depended on confidential informants within the registrar’s office in making their case against Ortiz, and the former registrar said he looked forward to finding out which of his co-workers had accused him of wrongdoing.

“I’d like to find out who they are and why they’ve done this,” Ortiz said.

Some answers may begin to emerge at a preliminary hearing for the three defendants, which Huffman scheduled for Jan. 12.

Ortiz, hired by the county in 1979, had a reputation as one of the nation’s most innovative registrars, employing computer technology and outside contractors to streamline the administration of elections.

He came under investigation in March, when three county employees came forward with allegations about Ortiz’s close relationship with the owner of a company that had done more than $400,000 in business with the registrar’s office in the previous two years.

The county’s dealings with the company, Election Data Corp. of Escondido, do not figure in the indictment.