For those of you paying attention to the story of Perv Cop Paez, I’ll direct your attention to some correspondence with the Fullerton Joint Union High School Board of Trustees from back in December 2018 when rumors of this story first came to light.
This is an email a friend of ours sent to each member of the school board:
Hi,
I just heard a rumor that a school officer working with Fullerton police, officer Paez, had naked photos of at least one student on his phone. If the student is underage I understand a name not being released but how many victims are there and do I need to be worried about my children?
Should parents be concerned about their child being victimized?
Is this true and if so is the school district covering this up?
I would hope that you learned something about honesty after Lindgren molested students at Nicholas. Please let me know if these allegations have merit and that Fullerton isn’t in the habit of covering up sexual predators.
Thanks.
Concerned Parent
Only one member even bothered to respond and that was the following paltry message:
Thank you for the information, I will bring this up with our Superintendent tonight.
Thanks,
Andy Montoya
So there you have it folks. A Fullerton Police Officer, in his capacity of School Resource Officer, was allowed to roam campus unchecked, film up the skirts of teachers and students, delete his own Body Camera videos with no oversight and allegedly store child pornography on his (department issued?) phone and you the public get to know nothing.
The Fullerton High School Board of Trustees won’t even bother to respond to you if you’re concerned about such things as predatory officers abusing their power to peep on your daughters.
To this day the school board has remained mum, the police chief put out a press release extolling his own virtues and you can bet our useless council will pat the department on the back for the bare minimum that was accomplished here.
How many students were victims of Fullerton PD while on campus? How many have a #PaezMeToo story to tell? Are your kids safe from predators while on campus? You don’t have a right to know according to the Fullerton Joint Union High School Board and Fullerton Police Department.
The paid lobbyist leach that is Jennifer Fitzgerald is officially running for Fullerton City Council again in 2020.
Do you love having a council member who is bought and sold more than a penny stock in a bull market? Here’s your chance to own a stake just like all of the downtown bars.
Prepare for sad face Fitzy as she complains about Sacramento and blames everybody but herself and her own voting record for why we’re broke with crap roads.
Unaccountable police perving on your daughters in the High Schools? Don’t fret, she’ll promise them raises and higher pensions as long as we get no accountability in return.
Fullerton may run out of property to sell to pay for her cronyism and mismanagement, but she’ll never run out of integrity to sell for a few votes and to feather her own nest.
So get ready for Fitzgerald 2020 where she’ll be towing child actor and chronic crony cuck Chris Gaarder along in the VP spot the same as she tried to do with Larry Bennett in 2016.
Could Fullerton do better? Obviously. But the real question is do we deserve better?
FORMER FULLERTON POLICE SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER CHARGED FOR VIDEOTAPING UP HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT’S SKIRT
SANTA ANA, Calif. – A former Fullerton Police Department school resource officer has been charged with secretly photographing and videotaping up the skirt of a 16-year-old high school student.
The Fullerton Police Department initiated an internal investigation into accusations that Officer Jose Anthony Paez was acting inappropriately while on duty. The investigation spanned the last five years of the officer’s on-duty interaction with the public.
The internal investigation revealed several photos and video clips taken on Paez’ personal cell phone in November 2017 that were shot up the skirt of a 16-year-old high school student while Paez was conducting a police investigation on school grounds.
Paez stopped working for the Fullerton Police Department in May 2019. The Fullerton Police Department referred the case to the District Attorney’s Office for criminal prosecution.
“As the elected District Attorney, I am charged with judging the conduct of police officers,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Law enforcement officers are entrusted with a tremendous amount of authority and trust. The actions this officer engaged in betrayed that trust and preyed on the very people he was charged with protecting.”
Paez is scheduled to be arraigned on October 2, 2019 at the North Justice Center in Fullerton. He faces a maximum of one year in the Orange County Jail if convicted.
Deputy District Attorney Laila Nikaien is prosecuting the case.
A quick phone call to the DA’s office reveals that Paez is being charged with PC 647(j)(2):
“(2) A person who uses a concealed camcorder, motion picture camera, or photographic camera of any type, to secretly videotape, film, photograph, or record by electronic means, another identifiable person under or through the clothing being worn by that other person, for the purpose of viewing the body of, or the undergarments worn by, that other person, without the consent or knowledge of that other person, with the intent to arouse, appeal to, or gratify the lust, passions, or sexual desires of that person and invade the privacy of that other person, under circumstances in which the other person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. For the purposes of this paragraph, “identifiable” means capable of identification, or capable of being recognized, meaning that someone could identify or recognize the victim, including the victim herself or himself. It does not require the victim’s identity to actually be established.”
The DA’s office seems to essentially be charging him with peeping when there are questions of possession of child pornography in the audit conducted by Fullerton Police.
The Fullerton Police Department issued a Press Release written to show how awesome they are and how committed to openness and accountability they are – despite have little to no details in the release itself.
The closest we get to details is as follows:
“When the criminal investigation concluded, Fullerton detectives requested the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to review the case for filing criminal charges against Officer Paez, whose employment with the Department ended in May 2019.”
Notice how as don’t even get to know if Paez was allowed to resign or if he was fired. The Press Release then goes on to extoll the unearned virtues of FPD:
“We are committed to being first to hold accountable those within our organization who do not meet the high standards we set for ourselves. That is exactly what happened in this case.”
This is the same city/department that worked out a settlement agreement with an officer to expunge Internal Investigations into her conduct specifically to bypass disclosure laws.
That settlement agreement, and this story about officer Paez are two of the things we wrote about a couple of months ago are some of the stories that led to the City of Fullerton threatening us with prosecution for telling you things we think you have a right to know about but they want kept quiet.
Prepare for City Manager Ken Domer, Police Chief Bob Dunn and the entire council and school board to keep you in the dark as this “ongoing case” works through the system. The city has yet to even give us a date for when Paez left the force or who’s phone the child pornography that FPD found in their audit was on – Paez’s personal one or his department issued phone. Nor have they explained why an officer had student sexts and underage pornography on any device so easily accessed.
Is this just another case of a badge giving somebody a slap on the wrist when a civilian would have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law?
Back in 2012, after Fullerton Officers beat Kelly Thomas to death. In the aftermath, that is still ongoing today as former Officers Cicinelli and Wolfe continue to fight their terminations, the Cicinelli family asked for close to $1k in order to hide out in his parent’s house in Arizona.
“We have recently been asked by one of our police officers involved in
the Kelly Thomas incident if the possibility still exists for
reimbursement of extra living expenses incurred in August following the
publication of their home addresses on a local blog. I believe I had
conversations with Alan about this expense being reimbursable under this
policy. As I recalled, our discussion was that certain expenses would
be allowable if they met the “reasonableness” test and clearly were
additional living expenses.
At the time, none of the officers asked for reimbursement. We now have
one indicating that he did incur additional expenses in the weeks
following the publication of his home address when he relocated his
family. He originally was inclined to not seek reimbursement, but now
wishes to do so.
Please advise whether you are in a position to consider such a claim
and, if so, what you will need to review to evaluate whether any
expenses are reimburseable.”
This request was received by Human Resources Director Gretchen Beatty, who we figured should have laughed it off, and then paid out to Cicinelli.
“We will reimburse the expense. Can you just confirm that the amount being sought is 969.31 and the check should be made payable to Jay Cincinelli and mailed to [redacted].”
The excuse was that somebody doxed Cicinelli but the truth is that somebody ran a public Google search and posted comments around the internet of information readily found on said internet. Hardly an excuse to shell out more money to a guy who just smashed somebody’s face in.
Or as one City Staffer put it:
“Maybe he should have thought about all this before he beat a man to death…..”
Here in Fullerton, where our downtown is essentially wall-to-wall bars with hundreds of DUIs a year as a result, we don’t take alcoholism or drinking and driving very seriously.
Sure we hand out awards to the officers with the most DUI arrests but when it comes to the over-serving or other bad behaviors by bars we don’t just turn a blind eye, as a city we change the laws on the books to make it easier for those bad bars to operate. Hell, Jennifer Fitzgerald is so blind on the issue that she’s on record blaming “pre-gaming” in the parking structures for the problems.
You can get drunk and kill a 6yo in her front yard and Fullerton’s Staff and Council will yawn at the DUI culture they’ve created. That’s not fair – they won’t just yawn. They’ll actively spend the next year making the DUI factory in downtown worse.
But weed? Now that’s a problem that Fullerton is willing to tackle.
Fullerton City Manager Domer and Chief of Police Dunn want help from the State of California to crack down on “black market marijuana retailers” despite the city council steadfastly refusing to allow legal dispensaries to exist in the city.
My City Manager forwarded me an article from the OCR..
He’s curious how you were able to get the state to assist you. Any insight you can share would be greatly appreciated.
In 2016 the voters of CA approved Prop 64 for legal marijuana with 57% of the vote, even 52% of OC voters voted yes on Prop 64. Even Fullerton was pro-weed with a 51% Yes vote.
Despite the vote, the Fullerton City Council has refused to allow a single dispensary anywhere in Fullerton. They won’t zone any industrial or commercial areas for legal weed leaving sellers in non-compliance.
You can run an illegal venue at the airport, refuse to put in mandated fire sprinklers in the largest nightclub in downtown, run a bar without the legal permits and so much more and the city is more than happy to let you get away with it. But weed? Oh man, that’s a sin too far and a sin that might cut into the profit margins of the bustling bar and fight scene.
This is substantially no different than Measure W, where 60% of voters voted against the development of Coyote Hills and the council is going to do it anyways. Welcome to Fullerton where your vote counts as long as we like the way you vote.
City Manager Ken Domer really is just another petty bureaucrat who doesn’t want people to know the truth. When our own Joshua Ferguson put in a record’s request asking for emails about this very blog and his own self, the city worked to limit the scope but not before throwing some shade his way.
Either Ken Domer is ignorant regarding how boolean searches work or he’s just being petty and mocking Joshua’s attempt at thoroughness.
“Ivy, I know Josh, or Joshua, or Josh Ferguson, of Joshua Ferguson, stated no timeframe –”
I guess if you assume your messages will never be made public you’re free to be arrogant and condescending about those members of the public you don’t favor.
Back in 2017 the city of Fullerton kicked Air Combat USA out of the airport and after a legally questionable bid process the city leased the hanger to a company called Hanger 21. We covered this briefly HERE and HERE.
Here’s some of the backstory from the City Manager himself:
“The problem is that regardless of the lease term, it is the use that is non-conforming. However, what is the remedy for a non-conforming use? Cessation of the use, which could happen if the PL amendment is not approved or the lease is not.”
Realizing that the city had approved a bid for a business that wasn’t legally allowed to operate, the city swung into action to fix the problem. The remedy was for Fullerton’s City Council to chang the municipal code in an effort to make Hanger 21’s then-illegal use conform to local law.
And because this is Fullerton – they failed spectacularly.
On December 05, 2017 the city council approved Hanger 21’s lease AND then on March 20, 2018 they changed the zoning at the airport.
“H. Other similar public facilities, commercial amenities, and special events on City-owned property when in conformance with the purpose of this zone and approved by the City Council.”
Read that and then think about the timeline because the city didn’t and hasn’t. I’ll point out the obvious problem:
“and approved by the City Council”.
The City Council cannot legally be said to have approved Hangar 21’s usage since they haven’t visited the issue since the municipal zoning change. This is a cart before the horse problem with the council just assuming that they’ve de facto approved Hangar 21’s lease and use through the zone change but that’s an ex post facto problem and is quite an illegal interpretation.
Score another blunder for Jones and Mayer.
Here we sit a year and four months later and the council has YET to fix this problem.
This is another case of city staff, consultants, attorneys and the city council being incompetent and hoping nobody catches on which of course has led to the city being sued.
One of the biggest problems with government is that it’s slow to react and generally stupid in those reactions. This is largely because governments are run by incompetent bureaucrats who refuse to learn lessons from their own mistakes.
Let’s look at some complaints lodged against city appointed commissioners and how the city reacted to those complaints to see how the rules in government changed depending on the person involved.
First up is a complaint against our own Joshua Ferguson by city manager assistant Nicole Bernard. She apparently got mad at the posting of an anonymous complaint against her.
She asked the city to compel Joshua to remove the post and the lawyer the city used to look into it came back with a big fat no can do: (more…)
For every problem that isn’t a nail, there’s a moron ready to swing a hammer.
20 Days ago FFFF got another threatening letter from the City that said if we don’t stop reporting news and telling the public the truth about what’s actually happening in their town, apparently there will be consequences.
What really strikes us as odd is how hard the city works to solve real problems v make work problems.
If they’re willing to go after local journalists connected to a blog that city employees routinely insist that no one reads, one can’t help but wonder what wrath the city brings down on real problems.
I’m not sure why Fullerton is so dedicated to being lying liars telling lies to just to tell them but that’s how they do.
Recently somebody put in a Public Records Request to find out if the City of Fullerton was in violation of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Grant Rules and risking a financial headache.
This all stems from Hanger 21 and their non-aeronautical use holding parties instead of making sure the space in question is used for actual aeronautical use as required by the FAA.
Public Records Request number 19-272 asked, and I quote;
“Please provide me with a list of non-aeronautical and aeronautical hangars at the Fullerton Airport.”
The response from the city was;
“The City does not maintain a list, and the Public Records Act does not require the City to create records in response to a request.”
Oh really.
Weird. This email from Airport Manager Brendan O’Reilly seems to say otherwise.
“Here’s what I wrote up for the eviction of the twelve non-aero tenants, along with the letter I sent out last February as a warning.”
So there’s a list of non-aeronautical tenants when the city needs it but not one when the city is required to disclose it? It sure seems that Brendan O’Reilly is making things up at his convenience to suit his immediate needs.
Oh Lying Liars and the Lies they tell.
This isn’t the first time that O’Reilly has been caught lying. He previously lied to the city about the airport having a waiver for non-aeronautical uses which the city doesn’t have. He got away with it because our council and staff are lazy, incompetent or both.
In the end, these lying liars who lie are going to cost you, the taxpayers, millions.
It’ll cost you when AirCombat wins their lawsuit because the city is illegally renting an aeronautical facility to a non-aeronautical user at below market rates AND the city purposely disqualified two applicants (including AirCombat) from the lease because Hanger 21 could pay more. BUT we rented to H21 at below market rate (if it wasn’t on an airport) because they could pay more than the tenants who would actually use the space for aeronautical uses which the city is legally required to prioritize.
Then it’ll cost you once more when Hangar 21 sues the city for estoppel for damages they incurred after the Feds force H21’s eviction from the property due to an illegal lease.
Oh. And don’t forget that the airport wasn’t even zoned to allow for Hanger21’s business when they were approved. Again, per Airport Manager O’Reilly:
“After our EDAT meeting on October 5, it seems that we won’t be able to get CC approval for the item because of the PL Zoning issue.”
This is the bullshit Fullerton’s Council tolerates. This is the bullshit they will continue to tolerate because they don’t know any better. This is the bullshit we get to pay for because our City Council is too spineless to ask a single pointed question, let alone demand compliance with our own laws.
It isn’t going to get better until voters hold these nitwits accountable and make them responsible for their actions. Good luck getting that to happen.
