"I'm not clear on it. How do you go from this level," asked Arlan Flaum, on a leather couch in the tony atrium of the Fashion Island mall, "and all of a sudden you're the most corrupt guy in Orange County?"

Flaum, a clothing entrepreneur who has lived in the county for 50 years, went on to answer his own question: "There's quite an underground here that some are privy to and some aren't. It's amazing the things that do go down."

Before Carona's public disgrace, a superior court judge last year was sentenced to 27 months for possession of child pornography. The founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, located behind white wrought-iron curlicues in Costa Mesa, paid $425,000 to suppress an account of an alleged homosexual encounter. The Orange County Register reported that the Justice Department is investigating the county treasurer for allegedly diverting funds from a bankrupt trucking company to pay for Botox.

The discovery that Carona had installed secret video cameras in his office evoked Richard Nixon, the Yorba Linda native who after resigning as president retreated to San Clemente, a community once represented by a congressman the John Birch Society had ejected for "extremism."

Flaum once shook Nixon's hand in a restaurant. "He was real Orange County," he said.

Carona was, too.

"The guy is a real charmer. I voted for him," said Shirley Grindle, who worked in the aeronautical industry that first populated Orange County. She has devoted her retirement to bird-dogging the flow of funds between politicians and the developers who fueled its even more spectacular later growth. Nationwide, only four counties have more people than Orange's 3 million.

 

"Before he ran for office, he said he'd like to meet me, make sure what the rules are," Grindle said.

Once elected, however, he set out changing the rules, coaxing lawmakers to allow him to appoint cronies as assistant sheriffs. One was Don Haidl, the wealthy owner of an auto auction business whom Carona placed in charge of reserve deputies.

Haidl told federal agents that $1,000 contributors got a badge and a weapon permit. One "reservist" was convicted of waving his gun at a group of golfers he thought was playing too slowly. Another pulled his badge in a dispute over a parking space.

Haidl resigned in 2004, just before his teenage son was convicted in the videotaped gang-rape of an unconscious 16-year-old girl in his Newport Beach home. But he remained close to Carona, whom federal prosecutors began investigating the same year.

"I love you, man, and like, you know, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be sheriff of Orange County," Carona told Haidl, who wore a wire after secretly pleading guilty to a tax offense. "You wrote checks to people, you took care of people. You know, I am done being embarrassed of my friendship with you."

The federal case involves a paper trail that prosecutors say shows Carona arranged for kickbacks for sending clients to a law firm that included several friends and his mistress, Debra Hoffman. The indictment lists gifts to the accused conspirators from Orange County business owners, including Cartier watches, Montblanc pens, a $2,500 custom suit and trips to Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe and Cabo San Lucas.

Carona's attorneys include defense experts from the mammoth Jones Day firm, which refuses to discuss media reports that it is forgoing a fee in the case.

"This case marks another step in federal prosecutors' persistent efforts, in the teeth of withering judicial and academic criticism, to impose an undefined federal code of ethics on local elected officials through the vague language of the honest services fraud statute," the defense argued in an unsuccessful motion to dismiss.

The defense is lately working to dilute the unsavory flavor of the government exhibits. On the tapes, Carona remarks on being photographed with "some whore from Russia" on his lap and, separately, beside a strip bar owner with reputed mob ties. Prosecutors possess a tape from an answering machine that a cellphone accidentally dialed while the sheriff was having sex with a female deputy in a county vehicle.

Court papers indicate the woman has turned state's witness, sharing with investigators "without limitation, physical characteristics, the kinds of sex he preferred, examples of sexual talk, and a nickname he used for his private parts."

That would be "The Little Sheriff," according to birthday cards published in the alternative O.C. Weekly, which was leery of Carona early on. Reporter R. Scott Moxley recalled being put off by the sheriff's phalanx of bodyguards (who called him "Braveheart") and Carona's choice of diversionary tactic during an interview on campaign contributors.

"In the middle of these discussions, he's saying to me: 'Hey, I got these great helicopters. You want to go up in a helicopter?' " Moxley said.

The high life was what he really cared about, Carona told Haidl.

"All the guys that, you know, got a lot of zeros, you know, in their bank accounts have checkered pasts, man," he said one July night last year. "Didn't want anything from me. They just enjoyed having fun and, you know, probably liked hanging out with the sheriff, thought that was cool. And I liked hanging out with them 'cause I thought that was cool.

"You wanna put me in jail for that, put 12 people in the box, and let's rock-and-roll."