Friday, October 22, 2010

Spitzer spills: corruption at the DA's office

Todd Spitzer Pounds DA Tony Rackauckas in KUCI Interview (OC Weekly)

      The equation is simple and easily more verifiable than any Albert Einstein formula.
      Todd Spitzer plus microphone equals, well, explosive talk.
      And KUCI-FM gave Spitzer, the rebellious Orange County Republican recently fired by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, a mic for an hour tonight.
      Somebody should check to see if Rackauckas has had a heart attack.
      In one of his most aggressive interviews ever—and that's saying something—Spitzer urged Orange County residents and reporters to pay closer attention to the people running the DA's office—Rackauckas and his two biggest advisors, Susan Kang Schroeder and her husband Mike Schroeder—because, he said, they are "immoral."
      "Immoral people are running one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies," Spitzer said in his interview with Cameron Jackson on KUCI-FM's "The OC Show."
      He added, "We're all in trouble . . . You can't take anything these people say at face value."
      Spitzer, a maverick politician, has an extensive job history: school board official, LAPD cop, deputy district attorney, county supervisor and state assemblyman. He'd also been an outspoken opponent of Rackauckas and the Schroeders in 2004 and 2005. But in 2009, he abandoned that stance and joined Rackauckas' office allowing the DA to be his mentor in hopes of taking the top slot by at least 2014. An 18-month arrangement ended in August with Rackauckas firing Spitzer. He blamed his understudy's immaturity. Spitzer says he was lured back into the office so that he would not use his $1 million campaign war chest to challenge Rackauckas in the 2010 election.
      In dueling Oct. 20 press conferences about each other, both men said they cannot tolerate the idea of the other being DA and will face off in the 2014 election.
      Other notable Spitzer quotes during his Jackson interview:
●"The man [Rackauckas] hasn't kept his word to his ex-wives, the public or me."
●"I'm most upset that I'm not [now] doing the work I love to do."
●"All I care about is making sure the system works."
●"I don't think the media has done as good a job as it needs to do [investigating allegations of Rackauckas/Schroeder corruption]."
●"It's been a rough week but I'm not stressed. I'm blessed," referring to suggestions by the Schroeders that he's mentally unstable.
●"She [Susan Kang Schroeder] has no business being DA," referring to persistent rumors that Rackauckas' chief of staff is eyeing the top slot when her boss retires.
●"I beat the [throat] cancer the same way I'm going to beat Rackauckas and the Schroeders... I'm so looking forward to this fight. If I don't do it, no one else will."
      Reached for comment after the KUCI show, Susan Schroeder sent a responding text while she and her husband watched the South Pacific musical at the Orange County Performing Arts Center: "We are going back to prosecuting bad guys. Todd needs to get a life."

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