The numbers and naughtiness behind the sheriff smear campaign.

Sometimes it’s not the amount of money in the sleaze, it’s the amount of sleaze in the money.

That’s the case for Californians for Law and Order, the shady general purpose committee (or PAC) behind the attack ads that targeted Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller just before the June 3 primary. There are many levels of bizarre irony involved in CLO, starting with the name, given the group has broken multiple rules of the California Political Reform Act. It failed to file its financial disclosure forms in close to a timely fashion, it failed to file complete disclosure forms, and it has failed to account for all of the money it’s raised and spent.

The other irony: It’s not a lot of cash. On June 9, just as the Weekly was breaking the story of how Californians for Law and Order came into being and who was behind it, the PAC reported that in March it had collected $2,500 from the Monterey County Public Defenders Association and $250 from Assistant Public Defender Donald Landis Jr. – second-in-command at the Monterey County Public Defenders Office.

More than a month after collecting that money, though, the PAC filed its official “we’re born” statement, marking its very first official violation. The second you collect $1,000, you have to form your committee and report it.

But go back to the cash, that bush-league amount from the Public Defenders Association and Landis. Both thought they were donating the money to the judicial campaign of Andrew Liu, who won Superior Court Seat No. 3 in the race against Deputy District Attorney Steven Somers. They thought so because political operative Chris Marohn, who collected the money and formed the PAC, told them so. He also told them their donations to the PAC would remain anonymous, which is illegal for donations over $99. But then again, he was doing fieldwork for both judicial candidates without either one knowing it, and also managing the campaign of Miller opponent Mike Richards, who came in third in the four-way race.

THE STORY DOESN’T ADD UP, BUT, THEN AGAIN, NEITHER DOES THE MONEY.

The story doesn’t add up, but, then again, neither does the money. CLO reported collecting only that $2,750, but reported spending $9,020 – $675 on radio and production services, $1,300 on website and video services, $3,100 on Comcast cable and online airtime costs and $2,495 on the mailer.

So who gave the other $6,270? And on what planet can you report a glossy folded mailer only cost $2,495?

“Informed choices mean following the money, and that’s why filing requirements exist,” says Kim Alexander, founder and president of the California Voter Foundation. The Sacramento-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization is devoted to improving the voting process to better serve the voters.

“The last bastion of dark money in California is the local election,” Alexander says.

Dark money – money that paid for a campaign without proper disclosure of the source.

Landis told me he hopes and even believes that when the PAC files its next round of financial disclosures with the San Benito County Elections Department, it will show the money he and the Public Defenders Association donated was used the way they intended it to be: to help the judicial candidate they backed win the election.

I told Landis I predict the following (I may have even offered up a kidney or my first-born as a wager): The PAC will not file another document. It will take the financial hit (in the form of a fine, $5,000 for each violation) from the state Fair Political Practices Commission for not filing the documents in a timely fashion, in violation of the Political Reform Act. And then Californians for Law and Order will dissolve and try to pretend as if it never existed. The FPPC will then take a few years to levy that fine.

Or the PAC will file documents that are so suspect they can’t be relied upon as truth. Then the FPPC will take a few years to investigate and maybe levy a fine.

Either way, Californians for Law and Order has until June 30 to make its next move – or fail to make it.

And either way, we, the voters, will lose.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan