The OC Register is reporting that Jay Cicinelli, the man we watched smash Kelly Thomas’s head with the butt of his taser is no longer employed by the people of Fullerton.
According to his dear old stepdad, John Huelsman, he was fired for policy violations and excessive force, a charge Cicinelli will be fighting.
Of course for those who watched the snuff video, and later heard Cicinelli’s admission that he smashed Kelly’s face “to Hell,” this action was a no-brainer. Even though the DA charged this creep nine months ago with manslaughter, the Fullerton Police Department and the Three Bald Tires permitted the investigation sham drag out for over a year before cutting Cicinelli loose.
The Voice of OC(EA) on Friday posted a story about yet another high-level crony of County CEO Tom Mauk bailing out of the creaky tub that is taking on water fast in the wake of the Carlos Bustamante sex-assault case. This person’s name is Alisa Drakodidas, and she was in immediate charge of the patsy who just got canned last week, and about whom I wrote about, here.
Deputy CEO Drakodadis, on far left at dump ground breaking. May be returning to landfill work soon.
Drakodidas was a Deputy CEO of Infrastructure (whatever that means) and apparently a close confidant of Mauk. She has taken a medical leave until the end of August, and of course is still being paid. She has got herself a lawyer, too, and according to Voice has sent the County a nasty letter blasting various individuals, including Supervisors, most specifically Pat Bates. According to the Voice’s source, the letter accuses Bates of getting one of her office flunkies a high paying job and generally botching things up. Other Supervisors, collectively, are blamed for interfering with contracts (I think this is probably code for doing favors for fund-raising lobbyists). It’s obvious that Ms. Drakodidas is not planning on coming back to work.
Apparently the County is not releasing any details of the letter via the Public Records Act, but it’s clear somebody at the County has leaked the general outline of this document. It must provide some interesting reading. Hopefully all of this finger pointing will result in a clear picture of why Bustamante was employed at all, and who let him get away with his twisted pervy sex attacks.
The fallout from the Carlos Bustamante sexual assault case has now begun in earnest.
According to the Voice of OC(EA), here, the County has fired some high level guy named Jess Carbajal, the Director of Public Works, and Bustamante’s immediate boss. Mr. Carbajal’s offense appears to be that when the first anonymous complaint against Bustamante was received in March, 2011, he directed the Public Works HR crew to investigate. Too bad they worked for Bustamante! Naturally the conflict of interest resulted in no investigation at all. Bad, boy, Jess.
The fish rots from the head.
Of course Carbajal, who now has lawyered up, has already fingered County CEO Tom Mauk and then Board Chairman Bill Cambell as being well aware of the original complaint.
It seems to be common knowledge that Bill Campbell was Bustamante’s political mentor and promotor; and that the gross, serial perv held a series of unrelated jobs and possessed no discernible professional skills as he ascended the high-paying County bureaucratic ladder. Somebody was looking out for this miscreant and it seems to be generally accepted that these people were Mauk and Campbell.
You lookin’ at me?
At this Carbajal just looks like a ineffectual patsy with no moral scruples, but he probably has a lot to say. Why it took so long to dump him is an interesting question all by itself.
Although FFFF hasn’t been reporting much on County activities it’s pretty hard to overlook the latest management crisis in the County Hall of Administration, in which top managers appear to have hushed up a multitude of sex crimes and workplace harassment perpetrated by a creep named Carlos Bustamante. Bustamante is a Santa Ana city councilman, and until last fall, a high level bureaucrat in the OC Public Works Department. Mr. Peabody touched upon the mess, here.
Bustamante was arrested last week by the DA, fifteen months after an anonymous letter was received by the County. Apparently that complaint was actually given to an underling of Bustamante to investigate! It remains unclear who made that call, but his boss, the Director of Public Works is taking the hit for the team – so far.
Mauk.
Meanwhile a second complaint in August 2011, spurred the CEO, Tom Mauk to hire an outside lawyer to investigate Bustamante’s activities. The consequent detailed report, completed in September 2011, supposedly detailed some pretty greasy stuff. For some reason the Supervisors were not shown the report – except for Chairman Bill Campbell, who now amazingly claims he refused to read it, supervising apparently not being one of the requirements of a Supervisor. The report remained under lock and key as Bustamante was permitted to quit and given 3 month’s salary to (get this) – prevent him from suing the County! Blackmail? Who knows?
Finally, the report came to the surface after the County’s Internal Auditor, pursuing his own investigation (and after months of stonewalling by Mauk and his HR Director, Carl Crown) was permitted the IA to see it. At that point the jig was up and the Board was notified of the damning report. They immediately referred the matter to the DA for an investigation which culminated in a dozen felonies and four misdemeanors.
Remarkably, in the intervening months between March 2012 and now, Mauk has been permitted to keep his job despite the inescapable facts of incompetence, cronyism, withholding information from the Board, and of course, paying Bustamante $45,000 to go away without a ruckus. Sure sounds like a cover up, doesn’t it?
Boss Tweed, OC style.
Evidently the Board, or a majority of it at least, likes this kind of thing and thinks it’s just fine. Bill Campbell has publicly said so, claiming the Mauk was just trying to protect the County by covering up Bustamante’s behavior. Of course that begs another question: why did anybody put the County at risk by employing this scum-sack in the first place? For that you may direct your question right back to Bill Campbell, who has been Carlos Bustamante’s political patron over the years, and who, no doubt, presided, along with Mauk, over Bustamante’s weird and inexplicable assent to the top of County government.
A “closed session” was held by the Board on Friday to discuss what to do. Apparently doing nothing remains the Board’s path of least resistance as they have postponed taking about the matter ’til July 24th. They had better hurry up. The DA has said that he’s not done investigating and will now focus his attention on personnel with the Hall of Administration itself.
Scott Moxley over at the OC Weekly is reporting on the case of a former Fullerton School District “recreational aide” named Emmanuel Moran who has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for possessing and distributing graphic kiddie porn. Apparently his computer contained thousands of images, and hundreds of videos.
Apparently Moran was employed by the FSD between 2009 and 2011.
No word on whether he was a good recreational aide.
Yesterday the world was treated to the moving words of love and respect that Slidebar Rock ‘N Roll Kitchen proprietor Jeremy Popoff had for Kelly Thomas, the homeless man who was beat to death by members of the Fullerton Police Department last July.
Poor Jeremy! It must indeed have been heartbreaking for him to lose somebody he had known for years. Especially since he now acknowledges that the call that summoned police to the scene was instigated by a call from his establishment.
(Horrible screeching sound as needle is dragged across the LP)
Here are a few choice quotations from a Fullerton Stories article dated July 23rd 2011 about the Kelly Thomas affair featuring some trenchant observations by Mr. Popoff himself:
“I feel guilty having ever had any contempt for this guy, but if you had asked me about him a month ago, I’d have nothing good to say about him,” Popoff said. “I don’t want to say that it was justified, what happened. But man, Kelly scared people. We …. were always having to kick him out of our bathrooms or tell him to leave customers alone. Then he would yell at us.”
“He had long matted hair and a matted beard that stuck to his body,” Popoff said. “I wish there was something I could do or could have done a long time ago. My manager was in tears when she called me that night. She was really shaken up by it. “
Popoff said that the police have been good to the homeless in the area near his bar. “The cops have been really lenient with him and other homeless. He was allowed to get away with a lot more because he was homeless. The cops gave him a lot of breaks.”
“We’ve given him lots of stuff,” Popoff added. “[He was] not allowed to be here anymore because Kelly did not respect our customers.”
Back to Popoff: “The last thing I want is to be anti-PD or anti-Kelly. We live here, I’m a father. We support the PD and the residents and the community. Literally, most of my staff was very scared and intimidated by him. They were reluctant to ask him to move along,” says Popoff. “Two or three days before [the arrest] he was bumming cigarettes and the manager said to him ‘Kelly you can’t’ do that here, you gotta move on.’ And Kelly screamed back at him ‘don’t call me by my first name!’”
What is PORAC? The Peace Officers Research Associaion of California is a statewide cop lobby whose contributions go to provide legal aid and comfort to cops, good and bad. We learned about this “research association” last winter as it made a $19,000 contribution to the anti-recall campaign, a failed effort to protect the political hides of the three cop union puppets on the Fullerton City Council. PORAC is also paying the legal bills for the two Fullerton cops, Manny Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, who have been charged with the killing of the mentally ill homeless man, Kelly Thomas.
Now PORAC has a new project: promoting the dubious political fortunes of Sharon Quirk-Silva. Check out the list of supporters on her website.
Now that’s a fine collection of educrats, far left leaning politicos that have helped tank California, and of course, unions that greased their skids. But really, Sharon, PORAC? Can you really be that clueless? Or is it just desperation?
For almost a year now rumors have been swirling around the role of Fullerton’s Slidebar in the death of the mentally ill homeless man, Kelly Thomas, last July. Specifically, did a Slidebar employee at the behest of his or her boss, owner Jeremy Popoff, make a phony call to the cops to give them a pretext to roust Thomas.
Staring into an uncertain future...
Despite all of his protestations of innocence and donations of canned food to the homeless, Popoff’s story never quite rang true.
A couple days ago the other shoe finally dropped: a lawsuit for wrongful termination by a former employee named Michael Reeves that goes into elaborate detail about what happened on the night of July 5, 2011, and the cover up that followed.
The guy claims the fateful and false call to the FPD that triggered the events leading to the murder of Thomas was made by Slidebar manager Jeanette DiMarco at the behest of owner Jeremy Popoff.
Later, when he wouldn’t play ball, Reeves claims he was demoted, then fired. The guy is suing for $4,000,000, a tidy sum, to be sure.
Well, there you have it. Is any part of this tale true? I don’t know. But I do know that the other, even more sinister part of the story is still looming on the horizon like a nasty weather front; and that’s the disturbing possibility that the bar was in cahoots with one or more of the police before hand, complicit in a criminal conspiracy to deprive Kelly Thomas of his Constitutional rights and even his physical well-being.
We now know that the DA has decided to look the other way in his haste to kiss and make up with the Fullerton cops, but the possibility that the attack on Thomas was per-arranged does indeed explain the antagonistic behavior of Wolfe and Ramos, and perhaps even the seemingly inexplicable violence of Cicinelli.
All this is now bound to come out in the civil proceedings against the City by Ron Thomas and Garo Mardirossian. The latter may be pressured to cut a deal to avoid embarrassing the City too much in a public trial, but the new council needs a vehicle to get all the facts on the table once and for all. A trial is just the thing.
All this talk about Fullerton cop union boss Barry Coffman has resurrected fond memories of the hilarious video we shared last fall, after the notorious FPD Excessive Horning harassment episode. It seems that good ol’ Barry was one of the principle performers in Dan Hughes’ circus. Enjoy once more:
Here is a fun e-mail sent out Wednesday by Fullerton cop union boss Barry Coffman. Yes, indeed, Barry is singing the blues, as well he should be. On Tuesday he discovered that the city he thought his union had bought and paid for just wouldn’t stay bought. Here’s Barry’s sob story:
Dear FPOA Member,
Last night we witnessed that the City of Fullerton can be bought. The citizens of Fullerton, or a least a small percentage of them, have spoken and decided that a change was needed. By now I’m sure you’re all aware of the city council recall and know what I’m talking about.
I suspect that besides the changing of the guard on the city council, there will be many other changes that will affect the city’s employees from the top all the way down to the bottom of all the bargaining units. The new city council will want to establish some sort of reform with us to save money.
Of course it’s still too early to tell what these changes will be but there are some ideas that are floating around that aren’t out of the realm of possibility of happening. First and foremost, our contract takes us through 2014. Remember we added an additional 1 year extension that only WE can choose to utilize if we so desire that would make us safe through 2015. My guess is that we will probably pull the trigger on the extension but we’ll wait and see how things are two years from now.
The city could also ask us to re-open our current contract and renegotiate. I’m fairly certain their reason wouldn’t involve us getting a raise or some other increased benefit. I would always be open to hear what the city has to say but we signed a contract and I feel the city should honor its end of the deal as we would.
I spoke with our attorney Rob Wexler about the city trying to null and void our contract before it expires. He said that the only way for this to happen is if the city declares bankruptcy. This very thing happened in 2008 with the City of Vallejo, CA. They filed Chapter 9 bankruptcy citing one of many reasons being employee contracts and their inability to pay them along with retirees. Their POA took the city to court stating the city purposely created a fiscal crisis to break their contracts with the association. The POA lost and now has a new contract with fewer employees.
Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
There has been a lot of talk about the Orange County Sheriff’s Department coming in to take us over as a contract city. It’s my understanding that the sheriff’s department would want to have a legitimate city council vote or city manager requesting a cost pricing for their services. They will not do a pricing just because someone asks them to. Again our contract will come into play since they would not want to interfere with it and get involved with what would surely be a fight between our association and the city.
Another issue would be the City of Fullerton trying to become a charter city. I don’t know all the pros and cons or intricacies of a charter city but my understanding is the rules change somewhat when it comes to local versus state control regarding local affairs. The City of Costa Mesa has been trying to become one. They want to be able to control their employee’s wages by outsourcing much of their city services to private companies or other agencies at usually lower cost.
Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
If you haven’t been following the news in San Diego and San Jose, you probably should. The voters in San Jose successfully passed a measure that would help curb retirement cost. Employees would be required to contribute significantly more towards their current retirement formula or choose to opt out to a retirement plan which would offer fewer benefits. San Diego voters passed a ballot initiative that would replace guaranteed pensions with 401(k) style plans for most new hires. I’m sure both ballot measures will be challenged in the courts and we’ll have to wait and see how they turn out.
Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
No one really knows what will happen over the course of the next few years. A few of the soon-to-be city council members have made it perfectly clear that they want to put our associations in check and have us pay more towards our retirements and anything else they can. Depending if they want to play by the rules and meet and confer as required, we could see ourselves tangled up in a legal battle like many associations across the state.
So as I close this message of doom and gloom, I don’t want to create a panic. We are a professional organization and we still have a job to do. Let’s keep up the great work we do and not fuel the argument that we are just running amuck out there. We know that’s not true and no other agency would be able to provide the same level of service to the citizen of Fullerton.
If you have any questions or concerns, you know how to get a hold of me.
Be safe out there,
Barry fpoapresident@gmail.com — Barry Coffman-President Fullerton Police Officer’s Association
Reform of a corrupt police department? Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
