D.A.: Revoke Haidl’s bail

Marisa O’Neil

The Orange County District Attorney’s office is asking a judge to

revoke bail for an assistant sheriff’s 19-year-old son who was

arrested Thursday on charges of having sex with an underage girl.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested 19-year-old Greg Haidl, son of Orange

County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, in Dana Point Thursday night on

charges that he had sex with an underage girl on Tuesday night. He

posted the $100,000 bail three hours later, Orange County District

Attorney Anthony Rackauckas said.

Rackauckas said the district attorney’s office is asking a judge

to revoke Greg Haidl’s bail because his father’s financial means and

reluctance to see his son go to jail make the younger Haidl a flight

risk.

“He has no regard for the law of statutory rape,” Rackauckas said.

“I think he’s a threat to do the same thing to other young ladies.”

Officials responded to a noise complaint at a San Clemente home,

where they found Greg Haidl with four other teenagers, police said.

Greg Haidl and a male friend ran and hid in the back yard when

deputies showed up, Rackauckas said.

Deputies found alcohol, marijuana and a used condom in the house,

he said. The girl was dog-sitting at the house and had invited some

friends, including Greg Haidl, to the home, according to court

documents.

Both Greg Haidl and the 16-year-old girl admitted to having sex.

The girl did not make a complaint against Greg Haidl.

This is his fourth run-in with the law since his 2002 arrest for

allegedly gang-raping an unconscious 16-year-old girl and assaulting

her with various objects.

“It’s astonishing he’s not acting on his best behavior,”

Rackauckas said. “This represents a complete disregard for the law.”

Greg Haidl was already free on $100,000 in the gang-rape case, in

which he, Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, are accused. A jury

deadlocked on all 24 counts against the teens last month. The

District Attorney’s Office filed for a retrial the next day. A

pretrial hearing is set for Aug. 6.

The same night a judge declared a mistrial, Rackauckas said, Don

Haidl threw a party at his Corona del Mar home, where “the new Jane

Doe and Mr. Haidl met through mutual friends.”

More than 100 guests were there, including “members of a major

news organization,” Rackauckas said. A news crew from CBS’s “48

Hours” was in attendance, District Attorney’s Office spokesman Mark

Macaulay said.

According to the D.A.’s motion, the girl “later admitted to the

Sheriff’s Investigator that she met Haidl at the ‘Hung Party,’ and

that she told him she was only 16.”

“I’m surprised and astonished he met this girl at a celebration

for the hung jury at a home in Corona del Mar,” Rackauckas said. “It

couldn’t be scripted. I couldn’t write that script.”

Tori Richards, spokeswoman for the Haidl family, declined to

comment. Calls to Greg Haidl’s attorney, Pete Scalisi, were not

returned.

Statutory rape of a minor more than three years younger could be

charged as a felony. Because the girl is two years, 10 months younger

than Greg Haidl, he is being charged with a misdemeanor.

Evidence in this case could be used in Greg Haidl’s retrial for

the gang rape, Rackauckas said.

Twice this year, sheriff’s deputies stopped Greg Haidl for

trespassing when he and friends were skateboarding on private

property.

In October of 2003, he was again stopped for skateboarding and

deputies found marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the car in which

he had been riding.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].