Between the Lines - Byron de Arakal

Three weeks ago, I was thinking Chris Steel was toast. Finished.

Not because the evidence against him would prove him a crook and a fraud,

but because the political forces aligned against him were just too

strong. Some battles, I thought, just aren’t worth the hassle given the

stakes. I mean, when you’re convicted of a felony, you lose a lot. So I

urged him to resign with his honor in tact. But he’s got more guts than I

do and stiff-armed the advice. I’m glad he did. Here’s why. Last

Tuesday, while sitting in a Santa Ana courtroom, I wondered again with a

pinch of incredulity what all the fuss surrounding Steel was about. And

on the face of Judge Thierry Patrick Colaw -- who presided over the

election contest brought by Costa Mesa resident Michael Szkaradek against

the councilman -- I thought I glimpsed for a nanosecond the same bit of

bewilderment. What I noted would foreshadow the event of the next day.

And it would tell me, too, that it was time for Orange County Dist. Atty.

Tony Rackauckas to drop the criminal charges against the Costa Mesa city

councilman. Steel - the alleged felon and purported enemy of the

elective franchise -- was sitting in the old wooden chair at the

defendant’s table, clad in a painfully gauche brown suit that I guessed

had been hanging in his closet for at least a decade. His salt-and-pepper

hair was scattered about his head, looking as if he’d just stepped in

from a gale or had touched a live wire. Beneath his eyes were bags

shadowed in black and of a dimension that indicated they contained the

wardrobe of the Von Trapp family. The 60-year-old councilman appeared

exhausted and disheveled, as if he’d been pulled through a keyhole or

coughed up by the cat. And this was only the civil suit challenging his

election. A criminal trial still awaited -- maybe. On the witness stand

was Marilyn P. Noack - reminding me of what June Cleaver would look like

at a bridge game 20 years after Wally and the Beaver had left the house.

She seemed confused and meek and probably wishing she could just go home.

Instead, she sweetly fumbled and stumbled her way through rapid fire

questioning from Szkaradek, the Costa Mesa attorney and CPA who kicked up

this squall surrounding Steel’s City Council nomination papers and which

has the councilman staring down the barrels of two felony complaints. ‘Oh

yes,’ Mrs. Noack answered, punctuating her certainty. She many times had

given her husband, Richard Noack, permission to sign her name on various

documents. And as she clutched the straps of her black handbag, she said

she recalled doing the same when Steel brought his City Council

nominating petition to their residence on Aug. 16 of last year -- the

very day he is purported to have intentionally attempted to subvert the

republic. Mr. Noack was dragged into this farce too. The weathered old

gentleman with a slight hitch in his gate -- a guy with probably a few

projects cooking in the garage -- was clearly annoyed with Szkaradek’s

questions. Szkaradek angled to pry from him an admission that the

signature of Marilyn Noack on Steel’s nomination petition was really his

writing. But before he could answer, Colaw had to advise Noack that by

answering the question he may be admitting to a felony under the

California Elections Code. So the good-natured old guy at first claimed

the 5th. But knowing what the truth was and not fearing it, he ultimately

admitted that the writing was his. And he did so in a way that seemed to

dare the district attorney’s office to press charges. He then stepped

down. The next day, Colaw tossed out the case ‘with prejudice,’ meaning

it was so without merit that it could not be litigated again in another

courtroom. In short, it was nearly a waste of time. Which is why it is

time for Rackauckas to drop the criminal charges against Steel. Having

failed the preponderance-of-evidence test in the civil proceeding, the

felony count against Steel involving the Noacks and his 2000 nomination

petition can’t possibly clear the tougher reasonable doubt standard

required in a criminal trial. And the remaining count -- which has to do

with Steel’s 1998 nomination petition -- is as weak as a slug on Valium.

In that instance, Steel is accused of forging the now late Alice

Billioux’s signature next to the ‘X’ the legally blind woman is said to

have affixed to his petition. He did so, says Ron Cordova, Steel’s

attorney, so the registrar would know to whom the ‘X’ belonged. Hardly

the nefarious act, it seems to me, of a craven felon bent on shredding

the trust of the elective franchise. And regardless, Steel had sufficient

signatures in that year -- with or without Billioux’s ‘X’ -- to qualify

for the ballot. That Rackauckas has pursued Steel for this long doesn’t

pass the smell test, in my book. Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Lubinski --

the prosecutor in the case -- said when announcing the charges against

Steel in May that the election laws ‘are made to protect the integrity of

our electoral system. To compromise or bend the rules would be an

injustice.’ True enough. So then why didn’t Rackauckas’ office file

charges against Richard Noack for allegedly violating the election code?

That’s the one that says, in part, that any person ‘who intentionally

subscribes [to any nomination petition] the name of another is guilty of

a felony.’ Do we bend the rules for Noack, but not for Steel? Certainly

not. But we do exercise prosecutorial discretion. And given the utter

failure of the 2000 incident in the civil proceeding and the lame charge

in the Billioux matter, it’s time for Rackauckas to call off the dogs.

Byron de Arakal is a writer and communications consultant. He resides in

Costa Mesa. His column appears on Wednesdays. Readers can reach him with

news tips and comments via e-mail at [email protected].