Prosecutors use audio tapes in Steel’s pretrial hearing

Deepa Bharath

SANTA ANA -- The prosecution, in an unusual move Thursday, presented

both a witness and evidence during the pretrial hearing relating to

criminal felony charges against Costa Mesa Councilman Chris Steel.

Prosecutor Mike Lubinski also asked to play several audio tapes that

included recorded voicemail messages from Steel to the Orange County

district attorney’s investigator, Jaime Joyce, and Joyce’s interrogation

of Steel.

Steel was charged May 16 with two felony charges. He is accused of

allowing resident Richard Noack to sign his wife’s name on nomination

papers during last year’s election.

He is also accused of signing for resident Alice Billioux during the

1998 election. Billioux was legally blind at the time and has since

passed away. Steel is charged with perjury for signing the Declaration of

the Circulator stating the signatures were genuine.

Steel has denied wrongdoing and has said he will fight the legal

battle without giving up his council seat.

If found guilty of those felony charges, Steel could face up to three

years and eight months in prison and be forced to give up his council

seat.

On Thursday, Lubinski tried to show, with excerpts from the

recordings, that Steel contradicted himself when questioned by Joyce, who

took the stand Thursday.

“Pure and simple -- I made a mistake,” Steel had said in one of the

voicemail messages he left for the investigator. “I was sloppy.”

Lubinski, by questioning Joyce, established that Steel had started off

by telling the investigator he did not know Marilyn Noack’s name was even

on the nomination paper and that Richard Noack must have signed her name

without asking him.

Steel said after Thursday’s preliminary hearing that the prosecution

was taking statements he had made “out of context.”

“What you heard in there was not the whole story,” he said.

Steel’s attorney, Ron Cordova, said he will most likely make a motion

today to bring down the charges from felony to misdemeanor. If the judge

agrees to that, Steel will not have to give up his council seat even if

convicted.

“I don’t see the alleged conduct worthy of felony treatment,” he said.

Cordova said the election code talks about committing fraud or perjury

and that Steel did not do anything “willfully” and “knowingly.”

“Those are words that draw the line between a crime and a mistake,” he

said.

Cordova called his client “fastidious to a fault.”

“He did not have all the information in his fingertips when the

investigator asked him,” Cordova explained. “So he volunteered the

information as he remembered.

“He has never denied anything. But he has gone into the depths of his

memory to portray what really occurred.”

Lubinski will continue his questioning of Joyce when the hearing

resumes this morning.