Two candidates for Orange County District Attorney face misconduct allegations

Controversy continues to surround the Orange County District Attorney race as both current DA Todd Spitzer and his challenger, Pete Hardin, are facing new accusations of misconduct. (Left) photo courtesy of Pete Hardin campaign, (right) photo courtesy of Wiki Commons

United States Marine Corps veteran and former prosecutor Pete Hardin was accused of trying to date participants in criminal cases he prosecuted while working in the district attorney’s office in 2015, a document obtained by the Washington Examiner shows. Hardin is currently campaigning to take over as Orange County DA in 2022.

The document, which was written by Hardin’s supervisor — Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Contini, stated an anonymous source claimed Hardin to be a “womanizer” who asked a defendant out on a date after dismissing a case against her. Contini explained in the memo that she later learned the case in question involved domestic violence the defendant was experiencing from her boyfriend, who was a police officer. 

“Hardin was developing a reputation for being a womanizer and there was a perception that this may be impacting the way in which he handles cases,” Contini wrote. “I was told that this was the general perception of many people on his team, but they were reluctant to come forward because they believe he is well connected.”

The memo also reveals the true nature of Hardin’s leave from the Marines, which was largely catalyzed by him committing adultery, and ultimately, resulted in him resigning to evade a court martial.

Hardin has denied the allegations and said that they were “mistaken.” Regardless, Hardin’s biggest opponent’s track record is no less incriminating.

“The many allegations against DA Spitzer, and this one allegation against me, have both been investigated — and the outcomes could not be more different,” Hardin wrote in a March 9 statement to the Orange County Register. “Todd Spitzer was found to have broken the law, while the investigation into these anonymous allegations didn’t corroborate a single accusation and disproved the most lofty claims.”

Current Orange County DA Todd Spitzer is also facing new controversies after a video emerged of him using the N-word during a 2019 event with the Iranian American Bar Association. 

During the incident, Spitzer was giving a presentation about hate crimes and reading quotes from the screen, though the racial epithet was censored on these slides. Many have expressed that the use of the word was inappropriate regardless of circumstance.

“No white person should ever be saying (the N-word),” said Torey Costello, an Orange County human rights activist who has been actively protesting Spitzer’s reelection. “I don’t care what the ‘context’ was.”

This video comes on the heels of accusations against Spitzer for making racist comments at an October 2021 meeting with prosecutors while discussing the case of a Black murder defendant. A memo formerly written by former prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh, who was fired by Spitzer Feb. 10, was anonymously sent to the Los Angeles Times revealing that Spitzer told lawyers he knows “many Black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating white women.”  

A Feb. 3 letter from Court Depweg, the acting lieutenant of the Newport Beach Police Department’s (NBPD) Detective Division, also accuses Spitzer of attempting to cover up his racial remarks. The Voice of OC obtained this correspondence Feb. 17,

The message was sent to Gregg Pickett, a judge for the Superior Court of Orange County, and argues that Spitzer withheld exculpatory information from the defense in an April 2019 case against Jamon R. Buggs. Buggs was charged with a double homicide, but on Jan. 27, Spitzer announced he would not be pursuing the death penalty.

In the wake of ongoing controversy surrounding the two leading DA candidates, two other candidates have entered the running: former DA prosecutor Mike Jacobs and Bryan Chehock, an attorney for the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

“What ultimately happens in a campaign like that is it really undermines the public trust in the District Attorney’s Office,” Jodi Balma, a political science professor at Fullerton College, told the Voice of OC.

Editor-in-Chief Katie Reul contributed to this report.