San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith accused police officer's victim of panty bribery

Oh, dear. Former Judge and current San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith got caught in the act of being--well--a normal lawyer. The Bar Association would never disapprove of a public entity lawyer, not even a City Attorney, acting in the financial interest of the city even though doing so might require inflicting serious harm on the public. In this case, it seems to have required that Jan Goldsmith make a false accusation against the victim of a sexual predator who acted under cover of authority.

It's amazing how morally compartmentalized lawyers (and some judges) are. When they're not out telling the public about how moral they are, they're back at the office preparing a motion to accuse the victim of a sexual predator police officer of bribing that officer!

This is the same issue that Mike Aguirre and Leslie Devaney argued in 2005. Leslie Devaney clearly thinks that people who work for the city attorney are right to defend the "city" by helping to conceal wrongdoing by the city against its own people.


Officer Anthony Arevalos Channel 6 video

I learned about this story from Roundtable on KPBS radio today:

...Arevalos Victim Accused Of Bribery

The woman who was the first to accuse SDPD officer Anthony Arevalos of sexual misconduct was praised by Police Chief William Lansdowne as courageous. That was then.

This week, we learned she was accused of bribery by the San Diego City Attorney’s Office in its pretrial defense of a federal lawsuit against the city.

The city said the woman, who remains anonymous, offered Arevalos her underwear to get out of a DUI. She engaged in negotiation with Arevalos over her arrest, which amounts to bribery. At Arevalos’ trial, she testified that he asked her for the panties to make the arrest go away.

The day after a story on the city's defense strategy appeared in U-T San Diego, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the city had dropped that line of defense and would no longer accuse "Jane Doe" of bribery.

Some observers see similarities to the city attorney’s response last fall to Irene McCormack’s lawsuit against the city and Mayor Bob Filner for sexual misconduct. Among other things, the city said that any injury or damage was caused and exacerbated by McCormack herself...

CITY: EX-COP’S ACCUSER TRIED BRIBE
Woman hailed by police chief for reporting sexual misconduct offered her underwear, City Attorney’s Office says
By Greg Moran
SDUT
Jan 15, 2014

Once called courageous by San Diego’s police chief, the woman who first accused former San Diego Police Officer Anthony Arevalos of sexual misconduct is now being accused of bribery by lawyers defending the city in a federal lawsuit.

In court papers filed for a pretrial hearing, the city says the woman offered Arevalos her underwear as a bribe in order to get out of a drunken-driving charge in 2011.

That’s a dramatic turnabout by the city. Chief William Lansdowne called the woman “very courageous” for reporting Arevalos and cooperating with investigators when Arevalos was arrested three days after the March 8, 2011, incident.

The woman, identified only as “Jane Doe” in her civil-rights lawsuit against the city, was stopped by Arevalos in the Gaslamp on suspicion of drunken driving. She testified at his trial that he asked her what she would be willing to do to make the DUI arrest go away, and he suggested she give him her panties.

The two went to a bathroom inside a nearby 7-Eleven where she removed her underwear, she testified, and Arevalos touched her before allowing her to dress.

Arevalos, serving his sentence at Corcoran state prison, did not take the stand at the trial.

The city’s position, outlined in legal papers filed two months ago seeking to have the woman’s lawsuit dismissed, paints a different picture.

“Plaintiff bribed Officer Arevalos with her panties to get out of the DUI,” the filing says. “Both plaintiff and Arevalos agreed to consummate the bribe in a nearby 7-Eleven in the Gaslamp.”

Browne Greene, a lawyer for Jane Doe, said the city’s position is hard to believe.

“After she comes forward to report she’s been assaulted, they proclaim her a hero,” he said. “And now, in federal court, they call her a briber.”

A spokesman for San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said in a written statement that the Jane Doe case is different from a dozen other women’s claims that the office has settled related to Arevalos’ conduct.

“Unlike the other cases, this one remaining case has evidence that the plaintiff actually negotiated over avoiding a DUI,” the statement said. “Regardless of outrage from plaintiff’s lawyer seeking a payday, if we have to try a case our trial lawyers present the jury with the truth.”

The woman was not arrested for bribery or drunken driving. Citing the ongoing lawsuit and Arevalos’ appeal of his criminal conviction, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis declined to comment on whether prosecutors ever considered a bribery charge against the woman.

Jane Doe is the last of a dozen women who sued the city or filed legal claims alleging they were subjected to sexual harassment or assault by Arevalos when he was an officer. So far the city has paid out some $2.3 million in claims.

Dan Gilleon, a lawyer who represented several women in those claims, said the city’s statements accusing the woman could backfire with a jury.

“It’s offensive the city would be doing this right now,” he said. “In these sexual assault, sexual harassment cases the last option you want to take is to blame the victim.”

Arevalos’ trial lawyer, Gretchen Von Helms, said Tuesday that the woman testified that she wanted to get out of the DUI charge. The city interprets that as offering a bribe, she said.

The federal lawsuit has become increasingly contentious as it moves closer to a trial, which will probably occur this year. Neither side appears willing to settle.

In the two years since it was filed, lawyers for the woman have built a case arguing that Arevalos was part of a larger culture of misconduct inside the department. The lawsuit is seeking a federal judge to appoint an independent monitor to oversee how the department handles complaints from citizens about officer misconduct.

The city says no such monitor is needed.

Arevalos was convicted of sexual battery, bribery and other charges and sentenced to eight years in prison. He’s seeking a new trial based on evidence discovered after the trial during the Jane Doe civil case that his lawyers say San Diego police should have turned over before the trial, but never did as the law requires.

A hearing on that issue is set for Feb. 7 in front of Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser, who presided over the trial. Jane Doe has been ordered to appear to testify about the notes.

District Attorney candidate Robert Brewer basks in the admiration of Dan Shinoff and Leslie Devaney

Robert Brewer

Leslie Devaney's and Dan Shinoff's endorsements of Robert Brewer can be found HERE.

“I have had the great privilege of knowing Mr. Brewer for over 30 years. He is an outstanding individual who is the consummate professional who treats everyone he deals with with great respect and always is a person of tremendous integrity. The County would be most fortunate to have Robert Brewer as District Attorney.”

Daniel R. Shinoff
STUTZ ARTIANO sHINOFF & HOLTZ

I imagine Mr. Shinoff is quite incensed at Bonnie Dumanis for indicting his clients Manuel Paul, Bertha Lopez, and others at Southwestern College, Sweetwater Union High School District, and San Ysidro School District.

Of course, it's sort of strange that Dan Shinoff feels he has to muzzle a retired teacher in order to protect his own reputation as person of integrity. (See my San Diego Education Report blog posts re Stutz v. Larkins.) Does Mr. Shinoff really think that people who have known him for years will think his ethics are questionable just because of something I say? Most of the facts that I discuss have been published in newspapers, or at least in court documents, and few people read my websites, anyway. Why does Mr. Shinoff see me as a threat to his reputation?

The ethics of the San Diego Ethics Commission: keeping secrets from "two-bit newspapers" about lobbyists who serve as its attorneys

“You have an excellent reputation in the community; you are an extremely careful person, and I don’t see why your answer should not be sufficient,” Commissioner and retired Judge William Howatt Jr. told Fulhorst.

The ethics of the Ethics Commission
By Dave Maass
San Diego City Beat
Oct 12, 2011

At a September meeting of the San Diego Ethics Commission, the agency’s executive director, Stacey Fulhorst, presented the mother of all catch-22s.

While inspecting lobbyist-activity records, CityBeat had learned that private attorneys retained by the Ethics Commission are also working as counsel for the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), a city redevelopment agency, and as lobbyists for private companies. The relationships seem to present a potential conflict of interest on multiple levels, since the commission both regulates lobbyists and enforces ethics in city government, including SEDC. Asked about this, Fulhorst said the law firm—Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff and Holtz—and the commission have put several firewalls in place.

However, since attorney-client confidentiality covers legal agreements, Fulhorst couldn’t offer proof of these safeguards without first asking the commission’s seven members to release the information.

“I would personally recommend that you do approve a waiver, a very limited waiver of just, literally, a handful of paragraphs, because I do think it’s important to demonstrate to the public that we recognize it would not be appropriate for us to receive legal services from the same law firm that was providing general counsel to SEDC on SEDC matters,” Fulhorst told commissioners on Sept. 23.

Paradoxically, Fulhorst couldn’t show the commissioners the relevant paragraphs because they’d then become public record. Nor could the commission turn to its legal counsel for advice, since the lawyers were the subject of the discussion.

The commission deliberated for 15 minutes on whether an agency that investigates conflicts of interests should be transparent regarding its own potential conflicts. Some members wondered why CityBeat wouldn’t just take Fulhorst’s word.

“You have an excellent reputation in the community; you are an extremely careful person, and I don’t see why your answer should not be sufficient,” Commissioner and retired Judge William Howatt Jr. told Fulhorst.

Some worried about setting a precedent.

“I just think we should be careful with granting such a waiver,” Commissioner Larry Westfall, an accountant, said. “Once you do it, we start to open the door for every little, two-bit newspaper in town to come here and make requests for information, too.”

Some recognized the public interest in releasing the document, but Commissioner and attorney John O’Neill alone saw that as overriding other concerns.

“I think it puts to rest any suspicion there is any impropriety here,” O’Neill said. “I don’t think it helps us to not give the document.”

The commission voted 5-1 (one member was absent) against releasing the information, rejecting Fulhorst’s offer to conduct more research on an issue that wouldn’t have come up a year ago.

With Proposition E in 2004, San Diego voters authorized the Ethics Commission to hire its own legal counsel instead of relying on the advice of the City Attorney’s office. Proponents argued it was problematic for the city attorney to represent both the commission and the city officials subject to commission investigations. They also noted that City Attorney staff are also subject to commission enforcement actions.

For the first five years, the commission employed a staff attorney, but when the lawyer departed last year, the agency decided to contract with an outside firm to allow more flexibility. The Stutz firm submitted a bid and, Fulhorst said, was selected because of the “unique expertise and knowledge” of Christina Cameron, a longtime City Hall staffer specializing in ethics and campaign reform who’d recently earned a law degree. Under the terms of the bid, Cameron would serve as a general counsel, working under the supervision of “associate general counsel” Prescilla Dugard and Leslie Devaney. All three were serving as counsel to SEDC and lobbyists, but the firm agreed that Cameron would be severed from SEDC matters and no longer register as a lobbyist.

In the first half of 2011, the Ethics Commission paid the Stutz firm $48,000 in fees, and another $3,000 to a second firm that handles cases when a conflict arises. During the same period, the Stutz firm collected at least $203,000 from SEDC. As a lobbying organization, the firm represents EverFlow Resources, Staff Pro and Western Towing.

Fulhorst, Cameron and Devaney described to CityBeat many of the physical and procedural measures in place to protect against a conflict. The firm also amended its lobbyist reports following CityBeat’s inquiry to better reflect Devaney and Dugard’s involvement with the Ethics Commission: Each provided less than an hour of legal services in the first half of the year.

Tracy Westen, CEO of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based watchdog organization, says he’s less concerned with the specific SEDC issue than he is alarmed to learn that registered lobbyists are providing legal advice to lobbyist regulators.

“Ideally, if you contract for ethics advice with outside counsel, you want that outside counsel to give you independent advice,” Westen says. “But if the outside counsel is also lobbying the city, its advice may tilt in favor of lobbyists in general. Simply recusing themselves from judgments involving a client they’re lobbying for is a good idea, but it does not purge them of pro-lobbyist sentiments.”

Of the 106 complaints processed by the commission in 2010, 38 percent—the largest portion—were alleged violations of the city’s lobbying ordinance, according to the commission’s annual report.

“If a matter were heavily related to lobbying and I felt it was inappropriate to talk to [Devaney or Dugard] because they are registered lobbyists, then I have other partners and other senior attorneys that I can work with if I need to,” Cameron says.

Westen says that’s not enough. “It’s very difficult for a law firm to purge itself of this appearance of a conflict if some partners are lobbying and others are not,” Westen says. “I think the city really needs to go to a law firm that is not doing lobbying.”

Fulhorst says that’s an impractical idea coming from someone “working in academia,” since the “vast majority of law firms” in San Diego are registered as lobbyists under the city ordinance...