A year in the reign and other rulings

A year in the reign of Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco.



An excellent, in depth article with plenty of links on the county's top prosecutor that managed to convey a comprehensive history and profile of him without including an actual interview with the article's subject. In fact, many local politicians are missing in action in the news article as well, but although there's not much precedent by the publication for explaining why people don't respond to its requests for comments or interviews, this article makes an attempt to do it.


(excerpt)


Friends and foes agree that Pacheco can be charming, eloquent and quick-witted and, when he feels challenged, can become cold, vindictive and bombastic. The result is a climate of fear among Inland politicians, a number of whom refused to be quoted in this article and others who would not speak to reporters at all.

Pacheco declined repeated requests to be interviewed in the month of December, saying through his spokeswoman, Ingrid Wyatt, that he was on vacation. He did not answer specific questions given to Wyatt and Sue Steding, his chief assistant district attorney. However, he did make public appearances last month, including attending a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony in downtown Riverside and various county meetings.


So the local politicians are stunned into silence? That's a switch because politicians love to talk so much so all this sudden silence so that you can almost hear a pin drop is a bit strange. What does it say exactly that they are all too intimidated or just unwilling to comment or even be interviewed for this article? What does it all mean? Is it a commentary on him or them and the local political scene?


If you noticed, the judges from the Riverside County Superior Court seemed to be very quiet as well, including those who were former prosecutors under former district attorney, Grover Trask who now works for Best, Best and Krieger. That's not surprising considering what several of them have faced this past year. That is, the ones who are actually still on the bench and aren't members of the "strike force" of judges whisked into town by the chief justice of the State Supreme Court up north to try and alleviate some of the backlog in the courts.


Quite a few people who were interviewed for this article and did respond included prosecutors in the District Attorney's office which has seen quite a bit of turnover in the past couple of years as well as representatives from law enforcement agencies including the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, state politicians and also representatives from community organizations such as the Eastside Think Tank. But then who better to write about employee turnover than a publication which has seen quite a few of its talented old timers leave including several who have taken media relations jobs with the county. Compliments, criticism, praise and a "climate of fear", as described in the article, is what defines the man who's the lead prosecutor according to the article.

Answers to some questions abound in it as well, such as the latest reason why the District Attorney's office has yet to send a representative to meet with Eastside community leaders and the story behind the abrupt resignations of several senior supervising prosecutors in the agency including Michael Soccio.

Soccio left the District Attorney's office several years ago and is now a private attorney. Just recently, a long-time fixture in the office, Randall Tagami retired.



Another article in the newspaper stated that thousands of dollars which had been given to Pacheco in campaign contributions was used to pay babysitting expenses for his children. There's a link to an Excel document compiled and created by the publication which includes these financial expenditures.



State law allows up to $250 to be used to pay a babysitter during each stint and what the babysitter was paid in these cases is clearly within the legal parameters, but this practice has been criticized and some would like to see the laws changed banning it.

Also being questioned locally is a state law that allows employees running for a political seat in their agency to receive campaign contributions from their fellow employees including subordinates. This practice has already come under fire in Riverside County during the saga involving former Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle and his department earlier this year.



(excerpt)


Political giving at the workplace has come under scrutiny in Riverside County. Supervisors John Tavaglione and Jeff Stone publicly criticized then Sheriff Bob Doyle for having accepted more than $60,000 in campaign contributions from Sheriff's Department managers and rank-and-file deputies.

The supervisors said the contributions could have been linked to promotions within the Sheriff's Department. Doyle denied the suggestion, saying that promotions were based on merit and performance and that his employees gave willingly.

Doyle, who was increasingly at odds with Pacheco and his allies, resigned unexpectedly in August with more than three years remaining on a four-year term. Doyle left to serve on the state Parole Board.

Tavaglione, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said he was concerned about allegations that promotions in the Sheriff's Department during Doyle's time in office were linked to campaign contributions, although he acknowledged that those allegations have not been proved.

Upon hearing that Pacheco also had accepted contributions from employees, Tavaglione said it may be time for the board to ban county elected leaders -- including the district attorney -- from taking campaign donations from people employed in their offices.

"It leaves a lot of room for criticism and questions. If you can't generate the funding through regular campaign contributions to ensure you don't need to go to your staff, the minute those staff members are promoted, it leads some to suspect that (promotion) was tied to their contributions," Tavaglione said.

Tavaglione declined to predict when the board might consider prohibiting such contributions.




Probably not any time soon, given the allegedly close ties that apparently exist between Stone, Tavaglione and Pacheco which were alluded to by observers during the situation with the Sheriff's Department last year, but it's a discussion that does need to take place at some point. Not that candidates, most often incumbents, who have run for the district attorney's position in the past haven't received endorsements inhouse including from the Riverside County Prosecutors Association which votes on who to endorse in any given election, which in the past has meant Trask. But it does present a potential conflict of interest when inhouse donations are given to inhouse department heads who also happen to be elected officials.




The Press Enterprise also continues its probe into Pacheco's stint as district attorney further by taking on the congestion in the local courts both civil and criminal which the publication now attributes at least in part, to changes implemented by Pacheco concerning the plea bargaining of certain classes of criminal cases.

Previously, unless you were columnist Dan Bernstein, mums was the word on laying any responsibility for the courthouse crises at the door of Pacheco's office. Even though all of those who are equal players in the court system of this county are equal players in its mess along with the appointment process of judges up in Sacramento, more criticism has been thrown at the judges than at prosecutors. As trite as it may be to state it, the issues that plague the court system will only be remedied if all the parties on that stage park their egos and work together to resolve them.


The very busy Sue Steding who is speaking for her boss in each one of these articles speaks out in this one as well. Not quite as hesitantly as in the main article when she appeared to mistake members of the Eastside Think Tank for gang members by stating the following in response to comments made by Eastside Think Tank Chair Mary Figueroa.


(excerpt)


Steding said it is not the responsibility of the district attorney's office to meet with community members to tell them how their loved ones' names can be removed from the gang injunction.

"The lawyers for the loved ones need to do that," Steding said. "We're advocates on one side."


What's ironic is that the majority of Think Tank members come from law enforcement and corrections backgrounds including several current and former Riverside police officers and at least one current employee of the District Attorney's office. It's too bad that the prosecutor's office views "community members" of the Eastside including its leaders as akin to the opposite of "one side" or criminals in need of their own attorneys. If the community leadership and community of residents including the many who aren't in gangs, of the Eastside aren't included in the definition of the "People of the State of California", then they probably need their own prosecutory agency to advocate for them.

Figueroa and the Think Tank had objected through writing to terms set at any meeting they might have with representatives from the District Attorney's office on the Eastside Riva gang injunction, one of them being that they had to submit the names of those from their ranks who would attend so that the investigators could evaluate them to determine if they were security threats.



At any rate, the series of articles are interesting reads. It remains to be seen how the District Attorney's office will react to them.



What's also noteworthy are comparative statistics between the caseloads in Riverside County in comparison with those in San Bernardino County.


(excerpt)



Population

San Bernardino County: 2.04 million

Riverside County: 2.07 million

Average ratio of judges to cases from fiscal 2005-06

Riverside County: 6,500 for each judicial officer

San Bernardino County: 6,704 for each judicial officer

Number of felony and misdemeanor trials

Riverside County: 709

San Bernardino County: 272

Number of civil jury trials (July '06-June '07)

San Bernardino County: 97

Riverside County: 22

Sources: California Judicial Council, courts in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, California Department of Finance.




Meanwhile, in Riverside, the respite from civic meetings and matters continues as people wind down from the holiday season and get back into the groove of Riverside proper.



Duck Daze is one way to learn more about wild birds that call the park their home. Besides Lake Evans, it's not a bad place to check out the feathered friends among us.



Is the armory a shelter? That's the question being asked and answered at Inland Empire Craigslist at the moment. Speaking of Craigslist, apparently it's a hotbed for prostitution as well, according to representatives from local law enforcement agencies who surf advertisements there and commented on the issue.


(excerpts, Press Enterprise)


"In this age, Internet prostitution is the biggest thing going," said Riverside police Detective D. Woolley.



"If we started at 20 and now we have trouble finding three (prostitutes), that means we're having an impact," said sheriff's Cpl. Geoffrey W. Green, who participated in the Sun City sting, the second sting deputies have conducted.


"Prostitution is not something we are having ongoing issues with. Gangs, gang violence, violent crimes and narcotics are serious issues that the department is aggressively targeting," San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller said.



There's still time to respond to this survey and give your opinion on the issue of the week.


The status of Sunnymead and the role it played in forming Moreno Valley is the subject of a historic column, part of a series by Hal Durian in the Press Enterprise which is very interesting.




Further down south, the marriage between Murrieta and Murrieta Hot Springs isn't going very well according to the Press Enterprise. The experts say the marriage success rate for couples is about 50-50. For annexations? I'm not sure any studies have been done but it appears that the two sides in Murrieta need to work it out.



(excerpt)



Over the past year, residents from the area have spoken in Murrieta City Council meetings about an abandoned town home project, road-safety improvements and an empty lot they say is attracting crime.

Some of the residents' concerns have been answered, while other residents have become frustrated with the process and are still waiting for a solution from the city.

"So much of what was built in that area was to county standards," Councilman Doug McAllister said. "We knew it was going to take some time to bring those standards more in line with what Murrieta requires. We are trying to get these things done right and it took a while for both residents and the city to find out what problems to work on first."

Luther Johnson said he is ashamed to tell people he lives in what city officials call The Loop. It is a section of Murrieta Hot Springs that houses about 350 families in 53 apartment complexes and duplexes.

In January 2007, property owners asked the city to help install street lights and more safety features.

City officials said they talked to the property owners and explained that they could not make any improvements to the area because the roads are private property and maintained by private fees.

"I feel like we are orphans," Johnson said. "They don't care about us. I mean, we are apartment people. Who cares about us. I pay taxes for this city. I am a part of this city. Why can't they work something out?"



Actually this marriage or merger involves a tempestuous relationship between a city and its annexed territory where residents say they need better access to the city services promised to them when they voted to approve the annexation several years ago.

Annexations in Riverside County are all the rage with Riverside, for example planning a number of them in the double digits. Will the city be able to ensure that the annexed areas which will become part of Riverside avoid similar problems accessing city services?

Stay tuned.








The chief of the New York City Police Department's terrorism unit is the subject of a complaint challenging his residency status. He says he lives in Brooklyn, keeps a cot in his office in Brooklyn but a complaint's been filed to see exactly where he lives.




The fifth Chicago Police Department officer involved in a drug ring has been sentenced to 9 1/2 years in federal prison.



(excerpt, Chicago Tribune)


represented the final chapter for a ring of rogue cops who did their illegal work in the Englewood neighborhood, in some instances putting the drugs they had stolen right back on the street for more cash.

Since the mid-1990s, at least three other groups of corrupt Chicago cops have been accused of similarly robbing drug dealers.

"It's fair to say these offenses rip at the entire fabric of our city," said Assistant U.S. Atty. John Lausch, who prosecuted Flagg and his co-defendants.

On Thursday, Guzman sentenced Broderick Jones, the ringleader, to 25 years in prison; Eural Black, the only officer to be convicted at trial, to 40 years; and Darek Haynes to 19 years. The fifth former officer, Erik Johnson, was sentenced in October to 6 years in prison.



The officers were portrayed in court as being fine upstanding citizens who had wanted to be police officers since they were young.

But former officer, Corey Flagg told the judge he had become worse than a common criminal. The criminal proceedings against him and the other defendants showed the extent of their actions on the wrong side of the law.


In the Chicago Sun-Times, the judge expressed his confusion about the man he had just sentenced to prison.


(excerpt)


The cops were good family men, according to court testimony.

Pastors sang their praises.

They gave back to the community.

One was a Desert Storm veteran. Another made more than 1,000 arrests.

And they were part of a ring that sold stolen drugs to return them to the street.

The judge said he had never seen anything like it.

"Good guy on one side," Guzman said. "Bad guy on the other side."



The federal prosecutor and judge said that investigation and prosecution of corrupt police officers was a long process and relied very much on the willingness of police officers to break the Code of Silence and come forward with information on criminal activities of others in their department.




Quite a stormy day in California. But the sun will be reappearing some time this afternoon.