(July 5) Ted Leher, who worked for both former San Bernardino County supervisor and assessor Bill Postmus and current Supervisor Janice Rutherford as an aide and political consultant, has been charged with stealing from former state Assembly candidate Russ Warner.
On June 27, the district attorney’s office filed a criminal complaint against Lehrer, 41, charging him with four separate felony counts, including embezzlement by an employee, misrepresentation as an access card holder, grand theft of property and grand theft of access cards.
Lehrer, who previously worked as a political consultant exclusively for Republican candidates, went to work last year for Warner, a Democrat, in his effort to unseat incumbent Republican 40th District Assemblyman Mike Morrell.
The complaint alleges that between January 2012 and February of this year, Lehrer obtained on at least four occasions credit cards belonging to Warner, Warner’s company and his campaign, using them to run up more than $950 in unauthorized purchases.
As of Wednesday, there was no record of Lehrer having been arrested.
Records show that the petition for an ex parte arrest warrant was done electronically on June 27 and granted by the court the same day.
No judge hearing the case was specified. There was no indication that Lehrer or his attorney, Jazheel Osejo, had made a court appearance. Attempts to reach both were unsuccessful.
Lehrer’s value as political asset has been previously brought into question.
The Warner campaign paid him $54,000 to manage the electoral effort against Morrell. Warner lost and, it now appears, Lehrer was utilizing campaign money, much of which Warner personally provided, for purchases benefiting himself to the detriment of the campaign.
In the fall of 2010, Lehrer was working as a consultant to then-Fontana Councilwoman Janice Rutherford during her run-off campaign against incumbent county Second District supervisor Paul Biane. Less than two weeks before the election, at 1 a.m. on October 23, 2010, Lehrer was arrested by sheriff’s deputies near the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Archibald Avenue for vandalism. Lehrer claimed it was an innocent misadventure that grew out of his overloading a trash can when he was discarding materials while he was posting political signs, which carried with it a suggestion Lehrer was illegally removing Biane signage. The incident briefly shed discredit on the Rutherford campaign but was not damaging enough to keep her from being elected.
Prior to that, Lehrer had worked for Postmus as a campaign consultant in 2004 and 2006 and then was hired as a spokesman for the assessor’s office in 2007. By 2008, Postmus fell under suspicion of using the assessor’s office and its resources for partisan purposes. That investigation would lead to his prosecution as well as that of four of his employees. The ensuing scandal resulted in Postmus’s conviction and resignation. Lehrer was not charged, but did turn state’s evidence against Postmus and his assessor’s office colleagues.