Did you see where Michael Richman, who along with his political consulting company MPR Strategies LLC, supposedly agreed to pay back the County of San Bernardino the $49K the County Board of Supervisor's initially gave him [Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_16073975].
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My first question is: Why didn't the County also collect interest on the money Richman was given and the County's costs to civilly prosecute him?
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My second question: Wasn't Richman's activities as alleged, a criminal enterprise (political activity on county time) that used "wires" (cell phones) for an illegal purpose, a form of racketeering under federal RICO laws? Why didn't the $325.00 per hour hot shots hired by the County Counsel and paid for by the Board of Supervisors prosecute this under the civil anti-racketeering statutes where treble damages could be collected if it is a criminal enterprise (more pointedly, why was this not a crime as well)? Why do I sense that this witness' cooperation component to this "settlement" is going to be as useless as the guy that is being laughed that could not get the DA past a mistrial in the Guttierrez case?
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My third question: How is this theft of County money for political purposes any different than Guttierrez's alleged time card violations or Irwin's alleged actions?
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Blogger Bob's comments: That the County DA is not prosecuting all (what appear to be) criminal takings of public funds for political purposes in this county is not only amazing, but suggests an overall scheme to:
(1) selectively prosecute or litigate (which means protect people Ramos and or the Board of Supervisors like and or are fearful of, by exacting civil settlements),
(2) decriminalize criminal abuse of taxpayer resources for political purposes by letting the chosen ones (the people the Republican political machine still needs or can't dump) buy their way out of trouble AND by doing so, set the precedent when one or more of the current Board of Supervisors gets nailed (for a political use of county resources and or time), for them to seek the same break, all the while carrying out some window dressing actions (the trial and retrial of Guttierrez). Are the current BOS folks feathering their nests for the eventual fall?
(3) By the way, the County Grand jury's comments about expanding staffs are right on--why would that be done folks in a bad economic environment? Its an election season and they need all the friendly faces out there projecting a positive image they can muster! That the County spent the time to respond is not surprising--its evidence of a guilty state of mind!
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What monkeys are running this banana cart?
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