San Bernardino County taxpayers paid $2.1 million too much in 1996 to buy out contracts to operate trash dumps in the local mountains because of lies that then-County Administrative Officer James Hlawek told, a county attorney testified Tuesday.

The buyout of businessman Joseph Harich's trash contracts, as alleged in a county lawsuit, illustrates how bribes to government officials cost taxpayers millions of dollars that could have been spent on libraries, roads and other essential services.

The controversy over the Harich buyout stems from the county paying $2.1 million that the county contends should have been paid by its landfill operator, Norcal Solid Waste Systems Inc.

Harich had the previous contract to operate the Heap's Peak refuse transfer station and the Big Bear landfill in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Deputy County Counsel Robert Jocks testified that he would have raised more questions about the buyout if he had known back in 1996 that Norcal officials were secretly paying Hlawek thousands of dollars in cash and credit-card payments. Norcal operated county landfills under a 1995 contract worth more than $100 million.

"I would have immediately gone to my boss and said, 'We've got a big problem,' " Jocks said. "That would have been a tremendous red flag."

The deal was detailed in the seventh day of testimony in San Bernardino County's civil lawsuit to recover millions of dollars from individuals and businesses that it accuses of bribing officials and defrauding the government. In testimony Hlawek described the clout of what he called, the "Good Old Boys Network" that controlled county decisions for many years.

The county case states that its contract required Norcal to pay the cost of Harich's contracts or buy him out.

However, Hlawek agreed in November 1996 with Norcal Vice President James Kenneth Walsh and Norcal consultant Harry Mays to claim that there was a mistake in the Norcal contract and that the county had actually agreed in prior negotiations to buy out the Harich contract, Hlawek testified last week. The resulting buyout cost taxpayers $2.1 million more than the county might otherwise have had to pay, the county case alleges.

The county is suing Hlawek, Mays and Walsh to repay the $2.1 million. Norcal settled out of the lawsuit in 2000, paying $6.56 million. Harich is not a defendant.

After the buyout was completed, Harich gave four parcels of land in the Running Springs area to Mays' company, Bio-Reclamation Technologies, for Mays' role in mediating the buyout, Mays attorney Randall Waier said.

Hlawek had testified that Mays told him the four lots were intended to go to Hlawek, Mays, Walsh and former San Bernardino County Supervisor Bob Hammock, a Norcal consultant.

In testimony Tuesday, Hlawek said he did not try to get Norcal to buy out the contracts under the original 1995 landfill operating agreement with Norcal because of Harich's friendships with then-Supervisor Barbara Riordan and paving company owner Martin Matich, a prominent campaign donor to county figures.

"I felt that because of those relationships with certain people in the county, particularly those two, that Harich would hold the county up for more than those contracts were worth," Hlawek said under questioning from Waier.