As I read various blog comments and accounts of Rancho Cucamonga City Councilman and former San Bernardino County Assessor employee Rex Gutierrez’ corruption trial and non-verdict, I realize the magnitude of what happened Wednesday is lost on most. Let me explain.
The District Attorney pulled out all stops to keep this case from going to trial any sooner than necessary due to his re-election campaign and fear certain information might come out during the trial. Gutierrez refused to waive time further. The District Attorney used every procedural delay available and the trial did not commence until the last possible moment. The District Attorney was hoping a smoking gun would materialize but it never did. The District Attorney’s hand was forced.
Some would suggest the 7-5, 8-4, 9-3 deadlocks leaning towards convictions indicate the strength of the District Attorney’s case. Rather, the trial and non-verdicts highlight its weaknesses.
The District Attorney’s case was so weak that criminal defense attorney Jim Reiss only had to put forth about ten percent of the evidence in his arsenal and did not need to utilize expert witness(es) available to him. Why is that?
The Gutierrez case, along with corruption cases against former San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus, staffers Greg Eyler and Jim Erwin, and developer Dino DeFazio, are based upon evidence offered by former Postmus employee Adam Aleman. Aleman agreed to plead nolo contendere in exchange for a lighter sentence in connection with his charge of providing false information to the Grand Jury. In exchange for his truthful testimony against Gutierrez, Postmus, et al., Aleman’s claims are the focal point of each of the corruption cases. The search warrants and arrest warrants for each of the five defendants were based upon Aleman’s accusations.
Many of Aleman’s claims were so blatantly false that several private investigators were hired to ascertain the truth. Mountains of evidence was compiled against Aleman to disprove his accusations. And it was that evidence that was expected to be used to impeach Aleman during the Gutierrez trial.
But the evidence never needed to be utilized during trial. Aleman quickly proved himself to be a liar on the stand, being caught in one contradictory statement after another. According to one juror, 90 percent of the jurors thought Aleman was lying. And that is without a single witness being presented for the sole purpose of impeaching Aleman.
The Gutierrez case is important for two reasons. First, of all of the corruption cases, the District Attorney has the strongest case against Gutierrez. It’s the only case of the five where it could be construed that there is corroborating evidence. Second, Aleman proved he is not up to the task of manipulating the jury as he claimed he would be so skillful at doing.
The latter puts all current corruption cases in harm’s way. The lynchpin for every case is now a proven, convicted liar. Millions of dollars spent and thousands of man hours expended and the District Attorney will likely be unable to win a single conviction.
But the story goes further than San Bernardino County. Remember California’s Attorney General, Jerry Brown, has heavily involved himself in this case, using it as political fodder in his campaign for governor. One must not forget that Jeff Burum was a very early supporter of Meg Whitman and slated to be her Finance Director. By Brown naming Burum as an unnamed John Doe, he effectively stymied Burum’s participation in Whitman’s campaign. Now we find out that Brown’s accusations were based solely on the claims of a convicted liar, claims that Aleman could not even keep straight while on the stand for a few hours.
Think of what happens through summer and early fall as more of these cases move through the courts and the public finally realizes the bill of goods Brown and Ramos have sold them. Ramos has already won re-election. His use of Brown as a political ally was brilliant but now Brown is facing the fight of his political life.
As we get closer to November, the fallout from Brown’s decision to join with Ramos in also using his prosecutorial powers as Attorney General to further his political career and harm his opponent may very well contribute to the end of his political career instead. He should take the time to examine the merits and evidence in these cases personally before they become an Albatross in November.
Moonbeam says: Ain’t karma a bitch (named Mikey).
Admin, you forget to factor in how obtuse jurors can be about corruption cases. What is lost on most of the bloggers here is how little most people outside the County actually care about local government politics. The vote for Paul Biane is proof of that.
I had that very conversation with a Chief of Staff a few hours ago. I suggested that fixing potholes and remodeling the senior center will do little to get his boss re-elected. Re-election will depend on the mood of mostly uninformed voters. A) Will they be in an anti-incumbent mood and B) Who sends out the most glossy flyers.
OK, but there has been a lot promised. Other exempt employees that have filled out time sheets the same as Guttierez. Serious dirt on Ramos that the FBI is investigating.
Right now the general public sees that Ramos and Brown have hit against corruption in everyone’s favorite corrupt county. The jury voted by pluraltiy to convict but would not do so unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt. But there will be a second trial.
So Ramos will not be able to get a single conviction. This may cost Brown 5,000 votes in the Inland Empire from those keenly in the know. But that will probably not be significant in the race.
If the goal is that nobody fromj a particular political faction is convicted, you are halfway home.
If the goal is to reign in Ramos or hurt Brown; if the goal is to bring honesty to San Bernardino County
government, then more has to be done. What has been teased has to be produced. More of what has been promised has to be accomplished.
I found myself rooting for Rex. I hope I was justified. I am kind of hung myself.
Good assessment. The County district Attorney definitely has a expensive uphill battle that at present is not sustainable. He should definitely reassess his strategy to save face.
If you wish to hinge your beliefs on something related to this case and the others, it should be the selective prosecution aspect of all these cases.
Just ask yourself how many others have been prosecuted here and in other counties for the same issues?
If Ramos would have filed criminal charges against the other elected officials past and present for their form 700 violations, then we would not be having this discussion.
I should say the form 700 issues and other related criminal matters that have been brought forth.
You have issues out of the Sheriff’s Department,Fire Department and other County Departments that were brought to light on this website and inland.
WE have not heard anything about those cases.
This blog discussed the details of a particular Sheriff’s Sergeant who had a long history of abusing the time card thing and he retired honorably.
You also have the POST scandal that has been lingering for months now.
So there are more than a couple other cases out there that have been swept under the rug and ignored.
JUST because Hoops put his official “there is an investigation” ongoing explains nothing, when compared to these cases.
So I must ask myself if Goritz is allowed to bring up this conspiracy between Postmus/Burum in hiring Rex and covering for him, then why can’t Reiss be making similiar arguments about selective prosecution conspiracy within this County??
A conspiracy between Ramos and Brown. Or Ramos and Hansberger or the other politico’s looking to bring down certain policitians in this County.
By now Burum and the other John Does should have been officially charge with a crime. INSTEAD Ramos plants the seed in everyone’s mind about this massive conspiracy about the Colonies.
Goritz conspiracy theory he talked about confused the jury more than it helped I believe. As the jury said they believed there was one, “but didn’t know how to apply it in this case”.
Reiss can defeat most of these arguments by the Counties own past practice.
I guess I might start out by asking Lamberto since he is the boss of Human Resources just how many employees at ALL levels have been fired and prosecuted for time card fraud in the last 5 or 10 years and go from there.
Ramos knew this case was a can of worms like the others, and that is why he waited to bring them to trial after the election.
Who is he trying to fool???
why isn’t this a case for the persoonel office. it seems silly to use our taxdollars to pay for such a stupid investigations. was he lying on his time card? I DONT CARE. this is a waste of my tax dollars. dock his pay, put a letter in his file, but dont use the district attorney to preosecute and waste all this time an dmoney.
Steve,
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. Haven’ had a lot of time for the blog lately.
There is so much going on behind the scenes it almost makes my head spin. We are all frustrated that things are moving so slowly but they are starting to pick up a bit of speed. Best as we know the next two months will prove interesting. However, now that the Feds are involved, we can only guess at that as our time frame is not their time frame.