Courtesy ktvu.com
Vern Pierson
Vern Pierson
Courtesy mtdemocrat.com
Attorney, Susan Gelman and her client, Philip Garrido, Democrat photo by Shelly Thorene
Attorney, Steve Tapson and his client, Nancy Garrido, Democrat photo by Shelly Thorene
Attorney, Susan Gelman and her client, Philip Garrido, Democrat photo by Shelly Thorene
Phillilp Garrido sits while his attorney Susan Gellman speaks in court Thursday April 15, 2010. Democrat photo by Pat Dollins
Vern Pierson: ‘Prevent the preventable, anticipate the inevitable’
Courtesy tahoedailytribune.com
It’s time for a change. There is a critical need to restore professionalism, integrity and public safety to the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office. As the chief assistant district attorney in Amador County, Vern Pierson has impeccable credentials in recruiting, management, supervision and training for criminal division staff. He has prosecuted hundreds of cases ranging from misdemeanor violations to prosecutions of violent and sophisticated career criminals.
As a criminal justice advocate, Vern helped change the laws to make it easier to convict and permanently lock up sexual predators. As a former deputy attorney general experienced in investigating and prosecuting public corruption and major felonies, Vern believes in a system where victims see their assailants held accountable.
He is running for El Dorado County District Attorney because as a tax payer and concerned resident, the current DA has under-utilized existing state and federal funds available to manage the district attorney’s office and has chased away qualified prosecutors who have taken other district attorney positions.
As an experienced member of the California District Attorney’s Association’s Legislative Committee, he believes bad laws can and should be changed. When Vern learned a long-time Lodi teacher molested a boy and then tried to get his teaching credentials reinstated, Vern worked with then-state Sen. Tim Leslie to introduce Senate Bill 2005 that successfully banned convicted sex offenders from holding teaching credentials.
As a former deputy attorney general experienced in investigating and prosecuting public corruption and major felonies, Vern believes an elected official is someone you can turn to in time of crisis and not someone you should fear.
There is a big difference between talking about investigating and prosecuting public corruption and actually doing it. Vern has prosecuted numerous public officials, including police, sheriffs and correctional officers, and believes no one is above the law.
As a chief assistant district attorney experienced in effectively supervising and managing personnel as well as budgets in the millions of dollars and more than doubling the Amador DA’s revenue, Vern believes in keeping local dollars local, and in utilizing all state and federal funds available to the counties to maximize all resources in order to fight an ever-increasingly sophisticated criminal.
As a graduate of the Army’s Airborne, Air Assault and N.C.O. Academy as Honor Graduate and Leadership Award recipient, Vern believes that honor, integrity and respect are things you earn, not demand – a lesson all elected officials should own.
Most importantly, Vern believes we all have a right to public safety by:
— Preventing the preventable;
— Anticipating the inevitable;
— Prosecuting the undeniable.
He is honored to have the support of the South Lake Tahoe Police Officers Association, El Dorado Deputy Sheriff’s Association, Sgt. Doug Pullen, Sgt. Don Atkinson, Placerville Police Officers Association, El Dorado Irrigation District Board of Directors, Assemblyman Tim Leslie, The California District Attorney Investigators’ Association, David J. Kreps, Chief Investigator (retired), El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office, California Financial Crime Investigators Association, California Association of Special Agents (DOJ), Peace Officer Research Association of California (PORAC), Sacramento Deputy Sheriff’s Association, Folsom Police Officer’s Association, Amador County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, Amador County Sheriff’s Mid-Management Association and Sen. Dave Cox.
Garrido’s Chilling Videos Spur Parole Rethink
Vern Pierson, the California DA who put away Phillip Garrido for abducting and raping Jaycee Dugard, released two videos today that show in chilling detail how Garrido and his wife went about luring young girls into their twisted orbit. The videos, he says, demonstrate why the laws need to be changed to keep violent felons from getting out of jail too soon.
One video is of Nancy Garrido, Phillip Garrido’s wife, coaxing a young girl to do gymnastics in the couple’s van. Nancy is filming the girl, and the purpose of the video is to show it to Phillip Garrido for his gratification.
“That’s it. Can you go all the way down?” Nancy Garrido is heard telling a little girl lured into the van where a camera was set up to record her.
When the girl says she can go down farther, Nancy Garrido coaxes, “Let me see, I bet you can go down really easy.”
With the girl eager to show off, Nancy Garrido gets her to do more.
“You didn’t show me your split, did you? Let me see it now,” she says in a sweet voice.
At one point the girl notices the camera recording her and asks about the light on the camera. “Oh, I don’t know anything about that camera. You know what I got?” Nancy Garrido chirps, quickly changing the subject.
The second video is of Nancy Garrido being interrogated by an investigator from the El Dorado County Sherriff’s Department about how many times she has done this. The shocking answer: between 10 and 20 times.
Pierson, who is District Attorney for El Dorado County, said he is upset that Phillip Garrido got out of jail after serving only 11 years of a 50-year sentence for a previous kidnapping and rape. That left him free to kidnap Dugard.
But Pierson said a big issue in the Garrido case was an “overreliance upon psychiatric professionals who were all too willing to listen to what Phillip Garrido was telling them and ignore the documented evidence that overwhelmingly established that he is a sexual predator.”
Something very bad has happened to the law in the state of California regarding parole, Pierson said.
“Since 2008, when the State Parole Board is deciding whether to release an offender, they don’t look at the initial crime the offender committed. Instead they look at how he or she has been coping in jail and the predictions provided by psychologists and psychiatrists about the offender’s danger to the community.”
Pierson wants the parole board to look at the seriousness of the initial offense when trying to determine whether to release someone on parole.
He released a report today with findings concerning the facts and circumstances of the Jaycee Dugard case. Garrido was convicted of kidnapping and raping Dugard, holding her for 18 years. Despite his record of violent crimes Garrido is still considered by the state to be a “moderate to low risk for reoffending.”
Pierson is working with State Sen. Ted Gaines, a Republican, to change the existing law. They are working on a new bill to introduce to the legislature next week which would permit parole boards to look at the seriousness of the committing offense in parole decisions.
Pierson and Gaines said they also want to strengthen California’s public safety protection in light of the circumstances surrounding Jaycee Lee Dugard’s kidnapping and captivity.
This afternoon the Calfornia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation responded to Pierson’s report with a statement:
“CDCR is determined to learn from the past and improve,” it said. “In response to several analyzes and reports over the last several years, we have repeatedly acknowledged that there was a need to improve supervision standards in the wake of the Garrido case. In response to recommendations made by the California Office of the Inspector General, the department has made significant improvements.”
Jaycee Dugard Case: District Attorney Calls for Reforms
“Jaycee’s kidnapping and her 18 years spent in captivity were beyond reprehensible,” said Sen. Gaines. “That’s why I’m working with the El Dorado County District Attorney to examine what went wrong in the Dugard case, identify reforms to the system and introduce legislation to better protect our citizens from becoming the next victim.”
Sen. Gaines and Pierson are planning an August 3 public meeting at the State Capitol along with law enforcement leaders and victims’ rights organizations to explore deficiencies in state law and identify potential legislative solutions to prevent these kinds of tragedies from ever occurring again.
The public hearing will include an analysis of the many shortcomings in federal and state parole supervision, as well as the initial investigation. The hearing will in part be informed by California Inspector General David R. Shaw’s 2009 report on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) supervision of registered sex-offender and lifetime parolee, Phillip Garrido. The report uncovered a number of mistakes that let Dugard’s kidnapper remain free and keep her in captivity.
Indicted county supervisor plots political payback?
Courtesy news10.net
PLACERVILLE, Calif. – As El Dorado County Supervisor Ray Nutting prepares to stand trial next month on multiple felony charges stemming from his alleged misuse of state grant money, he’s apparently found time to target the two elected officials who put him in the predicament.
Two candidates filed papers this week to run against El Dorado County Auditor-Controller Joe Harn, who first called attention to the irregularities, and District Attorney Vern Pierson, who obtained the indictment. Friday was the deadline to file.
Neither county official has ever been challenged in an election before and they say the two campaigns have Nutting’s fingerprints on them.
“This is political payback because the district attorney and I have done our jobs. That’s all it is,” Harn said. “Ray Nutting is looking for county officials who won’t call him out when he improperly obtains the public’s money.”
Harn and Pierson claim Nutting and his supporters hastily recruited the two candidates.
Harn pointed out the CPA license of his opponent, Camino businessman Mike Owen, had been inactive until last week and district attorney candidate Judson Henry first registered to vote in El Dorado County this week.
Henry is a bankruptcy attorney who represented himself in his own Chapter 13 filing in November.
The California State Bar shows Henry’s address is a condominium in Rocklin, which is in Placer County. He gave the county elections department a residence address on Mother Lode Drive in Placerville, which is a home owned by a political consultant who was worked on Nutting’s campaign.
Owen bristled at the suggestion that Nutting had recruited him, although he said Nutting was a friend and supporter.
News10 was unable to contact Henry, although nominating papers filed with the elections department show Nutting personally gathered the necessary signatures for him.
Nutting said the two candidates had chosen to run on their own to oust what he called two corrupt politicians.
“That’s not my doing,” Nutting said. “That’s Joe Harn and Vern Pierson’s doing.”
Pierson said the sudden appearance of a challenger won’t change the prosecution of Nutting on four felony and seven misdemeanor charges stemming from Nutting’s use of Cal Fire grants to clear his private property.
“I’m in the accountability business,” Pierson said. “And I’m confident that regardless of what pathetic game Supervisor Nutting engages in, ultimately he will be help accountable in a court of law.”
El Dorado County Supervisor’s Fire Prevention Activities Under Scrutiny Again
Courtesy .cbslocal.com
VIDEO
SOMERSET (CBS13) – There is more potential trouble tonight for an El Dorado County supervisor who’s already facing several felony charges. Fire investigators are now looking into how the fire started last week on Ray Nutting’s property and burned out of control.
The blaze broke out Friday afternoon on land owned by Supervisor Ray Nutting, which is near Somerset. Cal Fire says extreme winds, with gusts up to 60 mph, helped spread the flames approximately five acres. And it took them four hours to get it under control.
In March, Nutting gave us a tour of his timber ranch and showed us how he used thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to reduce the threat of fires by burning off debris.
“The more we do this in the forest, the less catastrophic fires we have,” said Nutting.
But that kind of work is the suspected cause of Friday’s fire. Nutting tells CBS13 he burned off several debris piles during a rainstorm early last week and blames Friday’s strong winds for re-igniting them.
El Dorado County DA Investigator Dave Stevenson says that’s no excuse.
“The lesson to be learned here is that when you are doing burn piles, you are responsible for them and your responsibility is monitor and maintain those fires until they are completely out, whether it’s three days, one day or a week,” said Stevenson.
And this isn’t Nutting’s first brush with firefighters.
CBS13 uncovered documents showing Cal Fire has responded to multiple other fires at Nutting’s dating back to 2002, and as recently as last January.
Nutting told us by phone this is the safest time of year to burn away brush.
He says he had a bulldozer and water standing by, but said Friday’s winds unexpectedly rekindled the brush he thought was out.
There’s no indication of criminal wrongdoing; however, Nutting is still facing several felony charges for perjury, conflict of interest and filing false documents in connection to accepting that taxpayer money to do the work on his ranch.
Nutting’s trial date is scheduled to begin next year.
Jailed ex-Taxation worker convicted
Courtesy nevadaappeal.comHERE
Ty Robben, the fired state Taxation employee who has been waging a campaign against the state and Carson City’s criminal justice system for more than a year, was convicted Friday of misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
The conviction results from what the judge ruled was his failure to meet conditions of his plea agreement in a case involving his alleged assault on then-Nevada Department of Transportation Director Susan Martinovich. He originally was charged with assault when he ran alongside her vehicle, banging on it and trying to pull open the door. He said he was trying to lawfully serve her with papers in a case involving another fired state employee.
Under the deal, the charge was reduced to disorderly conduct and will be dismissed after a year if Robben meets conditions including seeking counseling for anger management and other issues.
According to the Carson District Attorney’s office, he failed to meet the conditions he agreed to in the October 2012 deal.
Assistant District Attorney Mark Krueger said Robben was brought before Judge Nancy Oesterle on Dec. 13, convicted on the disorderly conduct charge and sentenced to 60 days in jail.
He was given credit for some 50 days of time served, so that sentence expires in about a week.
But Robben remains in jail in lieu of $50,000 bail on charges he libeled and attempted to intimidate Justice of the Peace John Tatro, including what Tatro said he sees as threats to his wife and children.
He lost an attempt three weeks ago to reduce his bail and disqualify the District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting the case. He is appealing that ruling to district court.
When he was charged in the case involving Martinovich, he was brought before Tatro. He was incensed by what he saw as unfair treatment by the judge and began a campaign to remove Tatro from office including a website that contains elements the sheriff’s investigators ruled were illegal.
They charged him with felony stalking electronically and attempting to intimidate a public official and intimidating that official’s family — both felonies. He also was charged with intimidating a public official, a gross misdemeanor, and libel.
He is still in jail awaiting a preliminary hearing in that case.
The Public Eye: El Dorado DA challenges payment to consultant
Courtesy cgja.blogspot.com
By Cathy Locke
clocke@sacbee.com
A civil suit has been filed in El Dorado County against members of a political consulting firm, alleging that they engaged in illegal taxpayer-financed activities to support passage of a special tax measure.
The El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office, at the direction of the county grand jury, seeks to recover $10,000 in taxpayer funds from Dan Dellinger and Christopher Alarcon of Dan Dellinger Consulting. The Lotus-based firm was hired by the Pioneer Fire Protection District to provide consulting services related to a special tax measure on the November 2011 ballot.
Measure F passed with nearly 77 percent voter approval.
According to the July 26 complaint filed in El Dorado Superior Court, an initial $29,900 contract between the fire district and Dan Dellinger Consulting included mostly taxpayer-financed campaign activities expressly advocating passage of the tax measure.
Public agencies may use taxpayer funds to provide information on topics related to district finances, revenue sources and intended uses of the proposed taxes, but government code prohibits use of taxpayer money to advocate for a tax measure.
Dellinger said his firm acted properly, providing to the district only informational materials and handling the paperwork necessary to place the measure on the ballot. Voter outreach activities that the firm conducted were covered by private donations to a campaign committee, Save Pioneer Fire, he said.
Dellinger maintains that the complaint is politically motivated. County Auditor-Controller Joe Harn requested the grand jury investigation. Dellinger said Harn and District Attorney Vern Pierson are trying to put him out of business because he has conducted successful campaigns for several political candidates that they did not support.
“This is Chicago-style politics at its worst,” Dellinger said. “The public will see through this.”
Harn and Pierson denied any political motives.
Pierson responded in a written statement: “Mr. Dellinger can take whatever position he wants, but the facts are that taxpayers were forced to pay for a campaign to raise taxes on themselves. State law does not allow that. Our office, as well as the El Dorado County Grand Jury and El Dorado County auditor all came to the same sim
ple conclusion – that Dan Dellinger and Christopher Alarcon violated the law.” For his part, Harn said, “Routinely, I do not look at disbursements for small special districts. A member of my staff brought this to me and said, ‘This seems way out of line.’ “
Harn said his office raised concerns about certain payments to Dan Dellinger Consulting based on a June 2011 consulting contract with the fire district that appeared to contain services for illegal campaign activities and what appeared to be a promise of a $12,000 bonus for the firm if the measure passed.
He said the district revised the contract to eliminate the “bonus” language, and the auditor-controller’s office paid $10,000 in invoices to the Dellinger firm.
Harn said he has refused to pay a remaining fee of $12,000 to the consultants for preparing documents necessary to enable the county to collect the special tax on behalf of the district, calling the amount “outrageous.” He said other consultants have charged larger districts less than $400 for the service.
The grand jury report focuses on the activities of the consulting firm rather than the actions of the fire district board that authorized the contract. Deputy District Attorney James Clinchard said the grand jury’s order was to recover the money that allegedly was illegally spent by the board.
Ripley Howe, secretary of the fire district board, said he believes the $10,000 was spent on legal informational activities but added that there is a gray area.
“We were completely upfront about all of this,” he said. “We weren’t trying to hide the fact that we were a public board in favor of a parcel tax measure.” However, Howe said, “I was uncomfortable with how involved the consultants were with the campaign committee.”
At one point, Howe said, he asked the consultants not to come to the campaign committee meetings, but they came anyway.
The grand jury recommended that the additional $12,000 not be paid to the consultants pending an audit of allowable vs. illegal payments.
Howe said the board will not renew its request to the auditor-controller to make that payment. The board decided not to have the consultant perform those services – which involved identifying developed and undeveloped parcels to determine their tax liabilities – after the controversy arose over use of taxpayer funds. Howe said he subsequently learned that the state limits the amount that can be charged per parcel for those services. For the Pioneer District the total is in the range of $800 to $900, he said, not $12,000.
“We’re not fighting to pay that bill,” Howe said.
DA aims to improve IT
Courtesy mtdemocrat.com
The loud hum of the HVAC systems cooling the data center serving the El Dorado County nearly drowned out David Russell as he pointed to two boxes in the large room. Both are servers, but one is much larger — and older — than the other. The cooling system, which takes up a large portion of the room, is also new. Both are part of an initiative to update the technology serving the county.
Russell, the deputy director of IT for the county, said the data room, which serves all of the official and governing bodies of the county, has been undergoing a large amount of improvements. The new servers allow the county to “host virtual servers,” Russell said. “We can host hundreds of virtual servers” off of a few normal servers. “We have a 40 terabyte cap.” The servers, in turn, are powered by new power supplies and cooled by new, more efficient HVAC systems. The old systems were “so far behind the times,” Russell said. A new security system guards it all.
“It’s all for the county and constituents,” Russell said. “We’re looking at e-fax, and soft phones versus VoIP,” or making calls using the Internet. “We want to ensure we are spending the taxpayer’s money the best way we can.” The systems cost less and are more efficient, Russell said.
The initiative to update the county’s IT department came about a year ago, when District Attorney Vern Pierson was offered the job as Chief Technology Officer for the county. He accepted and starting making improvements.
Pierson pulled up a live feed of the Board of Supervisors meeting that was occurring, though the meeting was in recess. Beneath the feed was the subject that had just been in discussion before recess, and the right of the feed was the PDF of the agenda.
“We’re using what’s available to communicate with the public in a more cost-effective, transparent way,” he said. Hence the live feed of the meeting, available on the county’s Website, along with the other information on the screen. “Anyone can watch.”
Another effort to modernize the county was in Pierson’s own office, with his deputy DAs being outfitted with laptops for cases. In an effort to go paperless, the laptops have access to a program that lists the court calendar, the complaint with charges against the defendant, a summary of the case and access to pieces of evidence.
Richard Pesce, an investigator with the DA’s office who developed the program and has a “significant IT background,” said it took a number of interviews with the attorneys in the DA’s office to get the program right. “I tried to make it pretty and intuitive. So far, so good,” he said. “Everyone has been very appreciative, positive and receptive.”
“Its intuitive to the user,” Pierson added. “A deputy DA tracks the typical steps of a case, and this makes it readily available. You can subpoena a witness, reset a jury trial. It enables us to make those big paper files go away.” He added that “even attorneys that were anti-paperless are very enthusiastic and use it.”
Normally, those steps, along with many others involved in the case, “consumed manpower,” Pesce said. “They had to hunt down the files if they were not in the bin. Now, they are updated immediately, they have access to it as soon as it happens.” The program interfaces with clerks at the DA’s Office to make this possible. In the future, there are plans to interface the program with the Sheriff’s Office, CHP, Placerville Police and the Public Defender’s Office. The process has already begun, and Pierson said within two or three months, the interface will be populated with files from law enforcement, eliminating the need to physically carry over copies of files, which can sometimes be hundreds of pages.
Pierson compared the system to the mobile data terminals in a sheriff’s patrol car, and Pesce said the terminal will also interface. “A deputy in the field types a report in, and it is shipped electronically over here. It populates the database with reports and evidence. It’s a significant savings on manpower and time.”
These changes came about because county’s IT had been “stagnant for a significant period of time,” Pierson said. When he was approached Chief Administrative Officer Terri Daly with the chance to take the position, which he describes as “part coach, part disciplinarian,” he jumped on it. “The culture towards information and technology was stagnant,” he said, and he was willing to change that. It was also cost-effective for the county for him to take the position, as he was already in a management role, the reason Daly picked him. “We began aggressively moving forward.”
From there, the changes began, from the data center and the new paperless system in the DA’s Office to simply moving county e-mails to Gmail and enabling the use of smart phones for county workers.
“A small number were happy with things staying the same, but things change. They need to get on board with that.” The goal, Pierson said, is “finding ways for the county to do more with less.”
Nissensohn sentenced to death for 3 killings
Courtesy laketahoenews.net
By Kathryn Reed
Joseph Michael Nissensohn will never have the opportunity to hurt another woman. On Tuesday, a jury of 12 in South Lake Tahoe said he should die for his crimes.
In October, the 62-year-old was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder.
The remains of Kathy Graves, 15, of South Lake were found near the Mount Tallac trailhead in 1990, about one year after she was last seen alive. Nissensohn also killed Monterey County teenagers Tanya Jones and Tammy Lynn Jarschke in 1981.
He has already been in prison 15 years for the second-degree murder of a woman in Tillicum, Wash. When he was supposed to get out in 2008 El Dorado and Monterey county prosecutors agreed to wrap their cases into one and filed charges before Nissensohn was freed.
It took jurors only 90 minutes to complete this phase of the more than six-month trial.
As soon as the clerk in the El Dorado County Superior Court read the verdict Nissensohn was handcuffed. The entire time he sat staring straight ahead in the direction of Judge Suzanne Kingsbury.
“I wouldn’t say it was disturbing, but you definitely feel a lot of responsibility is on your shoulders,” Bob Grant, one of the jurors, told Lake Tahoe News after the Dec. 10 sentencing verdict. “You are very careful to pay attention in court to make sure you get the right verdict.”
El Dorado County sheriff’s Lt. Pete Van Arnum was in the courtroom. Afterward he called Nissensohn a dangerous man. Van Arnum was with a different department when Grave’s skull was found near Fallen Leaf Lake.
He said it’s good Nissensohn was sentenced to death; pausing to wonder if these are the only crimes the criminal committed.
Nissensohn is scheduled to be formally sentenced March 18.
Since El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson was elected in 2007 his office has pursued the death penalty three times and has won them each time. Prior to today, David Zanon was the last person sent to Death Row from El Dorado County. This was three years ago for the murder of California Highway Patrol Officer Scott Russell.
California has more than 700 inmates on Death Row. Clarence Ray Allen on Jan. 17, 2007, was the last person executed. The controversy of using lethal injection is creating the logjam.
