I will never stop loving the Orange County Sheriff

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

I have loved Orange County’s sheriff, Mike Carona, since the first time we never met. He had come into the OC Weekly’s office in Costa Mesa, where your District staff once toiled and imbibed, to meet with our editorial riffraff. “Where’s Commie Girl?” he asked, because he wanted to meet me and I had cleverly eluded him by not knowing he was coming. Then he sent me a bottle of wine, and some chocolate for my son.

Mike Carona is a man who knows girls like a little attention and a little something sweet. And pedicures. Once, we got those too. He paid.

I watched last Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan federal building in Santa Ana as the sheriff’s bail was set by a federal magistrate—as well as the bails of his wife and (according to the 29-page indictment) long-term mistress. America’s Sheriff faces a possible century in the clink, and it was the happiest day I’ve had in forever. Am I a terrible person? I think we all know the answer is ‘yes.’

Before the hearing, I gathered with my reporter friends in the (travertine) halls of justice. It was a Big Kids’ club—and one that would have me as a member. We gossiped and giggled and guffawed, and we bemoaned the lack of R. Scott Moxley, from whose Weekly stories on the sheriff’s corruption(s) had surely sprung the feds’ investigation and eventual charges. That’s some good journalisting right there, Mox. Like I said when I left that rag: the news boys were always either busting someone out of prison or putting someone in it, depending on the week. This week was the latter, and oh, it felt good.

Inside the courtroom, the sheriff was looking sweet. There’s something about cops, Republicans and Marines that gets to me: I think it’s the manly way they want to shoot and kill people. It’s testosterrific!
Anyway, I was all tingly and staring and thinking cozy thoughts like “Now he can leave his wife and be my boyfriend! From jail!” His wife—also charged, and one hundred percent completely loathing him now—sat just an attorney away in the courtroom’s stadium seating. He smiled and laughed, all manly hubris (so fine!) and no necktie. She looked like a sad ghost. Maybe I wouldn’t steal her husband (in jail!) after all. Neither looked at the other for the entirety of the proceedings, but afterwards, for the multitudes of cameras, they held hands.

It’s a fine day for reporters when an elected official sits in the dock answering the statement “You are here because you are being charged with crimes against the United States.” The fineness of the day may have put a little inappropriate glee into our courtroom whispers. Christine Hanley, from the Times, made fun of my notebook, which was in fact the only scrap of paper I had in my purse and was in fact the back of a Planned Parenthood receipt. (My once and future boyfriend is coming to visit from out of state, and—no insurance—I’d paid $200 at the clinic for an annual exam, just to make sure I’m purty and clean.)

But all that glee at someone else’s humiliation can sometimes make us a little more hyena than human. Carona’s wife looked like she should be on suicide watch. Carona himself betrayed his shame only once, closing his eyes while the feds argued he should be denuded of his weapon. And we loved it. We gawked and tittered because one of our own had caught him. It’s the highest honor for a reporter, bagging an elected—especially one so quick to tout Christian values when everyone knew that the nice man had girlfriends. One even sat behind him in the dock.

I know the sheriff socially—not that socially—because I frequently crash parties and also because I used to be engaged to a GOP operative. I’ve attended weddings near the sheriff and all the other Republican bigwigs across the border in OC. We get coffee, and pedicures. They are waiting, in a polite, friendly manner, for me to betray them, and I always will. Journalists are not your friends, even when they believe they are. I know District reporter Dave Wielenga likes Long Beach Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal, and yet a few weeks ago in these pages he let her hang herself with her own words. She’d called for the registration of lobbyists but then said officials disclosing their schedules would be too “burdensome.” Well, maybe you had to read the whole story.

Everybody likes Orange County’s sheriff. He’s an extremely likeable guy! He’s affable, and schmoozy, and the first people he met with after his election were a gay and lesbian group. That is awesome! Also, he sent me a bottle of wine, and chocolates for my son. It was still sweet—mmmm, shackles—seeing him in the dock.

Tags: Commie Girl, indicted, Mike Carona, OC Weekly, orange county sheriff, pedicures