Showing posts with label Corruption in San Bernardino County. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corruption in San Bernardino County. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Boeing, Boeing Gone is Josie Gonzales' & Pat Morris' Credibility?

On July 12, 2011, the San Bernardino Sun in part reported:

"Members of the San Bernardino International Airport Authority - a joint powers authority composed of the county of San Bernardino and the cities of San Bernardino, Colton, Loma Linda and Highland - said they will file a formal response by Aug. 30 to try and undo the damage from what they called a "hit piece."
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"The consequence is that we will wear this like an ugly, wet suit wherever we go," said Josie Gonzales, chairwoman for the county Board of Supervisors, and member of the SBIAA board. The Grand Jury report said the SBIAA has engaged in questionable practices in regard to its finances, construction management and how it awards developer contracts.
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The civil Grand Jury commissioned an audit of the airport following complaints it received two years ago of irregularities occurring at the former Norton Air Force Base.
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The audit raised questions about the SBIAA's oversight of spending, rising costs of projects, and its relationship with Scot Spencer, a convicted felon who has served time in federal prison for bankruptcy fraud and has been banned from the aviation industry.
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The U.S. Department of Transportation fined Spencer $1 million and banned him from the aviation industry, but the fine remains unpaid.
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Still, the airport authority has entered into multiple contracts with Spencer.
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Airport officials said they are concerned that the report will harm efforts to land a commercial airline, as well as bring business to the surrounding area.

Mayor Pat Morris, who is the SBIAA's board president, said the implications of the report are profound, and the alleged errors in it will be addressed in the coming weeks."There are some real damning factual errors in here that have to be be unmasked..." Morris said.
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He said the airport authority will address the Grand Jury report issue by issue at its upcoming meetings, leading up to its written response.
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"It's going to have to be done in public in the interest of being transparent and in the interest of having the public take a look at how we actually have intended and will continue to intend to run the business of SBIA," Gonzales said.
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Morris said the SBIAA received the Grand Jury report 48 hours before it was published, and that airport officials were not given time to address factual errors in the document, as had allegedly been promised.
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Officials also said that the auditors ignored vital information that the SBIAA offered them for their report.
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"A lot of the fundamental things they are saying in here we do not agree with," Rogers said.
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Those include how the airport has awarded contracts for work, and how it purchased equipment for projects.
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As for Spencer's involvement, Gonzales said the SBIAA intends to seek outside legal opinion on the matter.
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"My own due diligence says this is not an issue," said Tim Sabo, the attorney for the airport board.
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Rogers said Boeing Co., which tests its jets at the airport, wouldn't do business there if it had concerns about Spencer, who has led development of the airport since 2003.
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"They trust him," Rogers said. ... [Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_"]
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Blogger Bob's comment: That Boeing, who has its own history of allegedly buying politicians, "trust(s) [Spencer]", a convicted felon, probably is not big news, but Mayor (and former Judge) Morris & Board of Supervisor Chair Josie Gonzales knowingly do business with those that trust such a convicted felon [Spencer] is probably the biggest news. Also, if the U.S. Department of Transportation has fined Spencer $1 million (which remains unpaid), banned him from the aviation industry and the San Bernardino International Airport Authority is signing contracts with Spencer, no wonder they can't bring regularly scheduled commercial flights to the airport!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Spanky's, LLC, Wonderful Memories Child Care Center Inc, Greater High Desert Investments, LLC & Educational Development, Inc -- Mitzelfelt funnels?

(1) Educational Development, Inc with a corporate address of 14653 Airbase Road, Mountain Home, Idaho, lists in Articles of Incorporation filed that John Dino Defazio is "the Incorporator" & the "registered agent"; if its the same guy that has been indicted in San Bernardino County (and a Postmus ally), what is a real estate broker with alleged ties to charter schools in San Bernardino County doing creating an educational business in Idaho?? What money was funding that corporation? What money did it spend? Who did it go to?
(2) Spanky's, LLC (with a mailing address on the Idaho Secretary of State website of 12127 Mall Blvd, Suite A, Victorville and a physical office address of 101 Convention Center Drive, Las Vegas) was started February 2, 2007 & lists a Jessie Flores as the "registered agent" in Idaho with an address of 14653 Airbase Road, Mountain Home, Idaho; if it is the same Jessie Flores that was Postmus' staffer (and later Mitzelfelt's field rep), what was the purpose of this enterprise? Was any of his possible ownership interest disclosed on his FPPC 700 forms?
(3) Wonderful Memories Child Care Center, Inc (with a principal office address on the Idaho Secretary of State website of 930 South 4th Street, Las Vegas, Nevada), shows Jessie Flores as the registered agent at a Mountain Home, Idaho address--incorporation date 7/23/2004. The Jessie Flores is reported as the corporation's director, president & treasurer. If it is the same Jessie Flores that was Postmus' staffer (and later Mitzelfelt's field rep), what was the purpose of this enterprise? Was any of his possible ownership interest disclosed on his FPPC 700 form(s)? Why would a staffer, covering the biggest district in the County, have time for these side treks to Idaho to set up companies suggesting child care services were to be provided? Speaking of time, whose time and money went into this organizational venture ? What was the business of this Investment enterprise? Who was involved? How was it capitalized? What did it spend and on what?
(4) Greater High Desert Investments, LLC was created August 11, 2008 with its initial address of 930 South 4th #150, Las Vegas; the initial registered agent was a William Flores. Also listed as a member or manager of the LLC is the same William Flores; the principle office of the LLC--you guessed it ,Airbase Road, Mountain Home, Idaho; any relationship or involvement of the Jessie Flores working/who worked for Bill Postmus & Mitzelfelt? What was the business of this investment enterprise? Who was involved? How was it capitalized? What did it spend and on what?

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Local 'clown' faces three years for threatening to rape Bell city clerk & a milktoast grand jury report

ET Snell gets in trouble again, but with that said, he was another person who asked questions about this County's corrupted leadership. In expanding his reach to the embattled City of Bell, despite risks to his health/disability,he ran across a city clerk that enraged him/her him and words were allegedly spoken that somehow did not pass 1st amendment muster [See article @: Local 'clown' faces three years for threatening to rape Bell city clerk | threatening, clown, three - High Desert News].
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Heh, did anyone read the grand jury report that just came out? If you read the report you'd never know that this county has developed as one of the worst pay-to-play environments in the country, a county with top elected officials indicted (and in some instances convicted) and what was even more remarkable, is no discussion about recommended steps to catch future missteps before they mature into District Attorney fodder.
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On the 300 page transcript that was not given to two of the four defendants assuming it was not "copied" despite it being proscribed by the Government Code (See July 5, 2011 Press Enterprise article @ http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_colonies02.3f3acba.html, relating that the failure to deliver a 300 page volume of transcript caused a delay in arraignment from July 8, 2011 to August 19, 2011), has anyone ever heard of a court reporter scanning onto PDF format the transcript and emailing it? Does the reasoning sound a tad bit pretextual to anyone except me? August 19, 2011 to appear and plead?

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Nibs says.......

Nibs, a reliable source in San Bernardino County, who has been close to the Daily Press (and less frequently the San Bernardino Sun), has watched people who claim no bone in the fight, do a lot of growling and scurrying with their tails between their legs. With the 22nd coming up, it will be interesting to see who will get away.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

All's Not Well (?) # 6

iePolitics.com reports:

"Additional information regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) probe into the San Bernardino County corruption scandal has been trickling into iePolitics. It appears there are two general areas the Bureau is concentrating on: all investigations conducted by District Attorney Mike Ramos’ Public Integrity Unit (PIU) and the Superior Court bench.

Based upon questions being asked by agents, this investigation is wide-ranging. iePolitics has been told that questions are being asked regarding various real estate deals; destruction of records by former Third District Supervisor Dennis Hansberger; disparity in handling the various FPPC complaints by Ramos against Penrod, Erwin, Biane, Devereaux, and others; the difference in the way in which 1099 charges against Jim Miller and Bea Cortes were handled; the POST scandal; possibly several of the issues at ARMC (regarding Supervisors Biane and Gonzales); and much more.

From what we are being told, the FBI is looking at each investigation the PIU has been involved in and tracing it back to its inception. It would appear that part of the investigation is meant to uncover selective prosecution and use of the district attorney’s prosecutorial powers for political purposes. It is believed that the attorney general’s involvement is also being reviewed.

As stated in previous articles, we know that solid evidence of at least one felony committed by Ramos was provided to the FBI several months ago; however, it is not known what crime was alleged. Furthermore, evidence of witness tampering and intimidation personally committed by Ramos may be made public as early as today.

As much as we here at iePolitics enjoy watching Ramos squirm as the tables have been turned on him, of much greater concern and satisfaction is the scrutiny the Superior Court bench is now receiving from the federal government. Clearly, all judges have a great deal of discretion in the decisions they make. However, from the first moment a Superior Court judge became involved in the corruption scandal, there have been highly suspect decisions and rulings.

Search warrants were issued based solely on the testimony of a convicted perjurer who agreed to cooperate to gain a lesser sentence. Excessively high bails were set for white collar crimes that far exceed what is set for violent offenders who are a flight risk. And one judge had a personal relationship with the Ramos’ personal attorney. This scandal has been fraught with questionable rulings from the bench.

Additionally, we have witnessed two examples where the district attorney and attorney general have attempted to thwart attorney/client privilege. First, a search warrant was signed and served on the attorney of one of the defendants, something this is almost unheard of. And more recently, the bullying by the Attorney General’s office to force all parties involved in the Colonies decision to waive attorney/client privilege has reached new heights with threats being made by the Attorney General’s office.

But perhaps the most egregious examples of prosecutorial misconduct and judicial incompetence or payoff involve the two sets of charges against former Assistant Assessor Jim Erwin. There are sections of the law that clearly show Erwin did NOT have to report the trip or watch, but the district attorney charged him anyway. The craziest and most far-fetched charges are the conspiracy and bribery allegations.

We realize the average person reading this article does not understand the law well enough to know that certain elements must be present to allege both conspiracy and bribery. While Erwin was still in custody we asked a retired prosecutor to review the charges against Erwin and give us his opinion. He was shocked that a judge would sign an arrest warrant based on the allegations made as the elements of the crime were not present. That has been the opinion of every attorney we know of who has actually spent the time to read the entire complaint.

And that begs this question: Why would a judge sign these search warrants and arrest warrants? Certainly, they should know as well as anyone what the elements of each crime are.

As we have written about before here at iePolitics, the close personal relationship between Ramos and members of the San Bernardino County Superior Court bench is a concern. It is not only a concern to the corruption scandal defendants, but to all who enter the courthouse in search of justice. Now we have the FBI observing San Bernardino County justice first hand. And if they do a thorough job, it will benefit every citizen in this county.

Be it corrupt prosecutors, politicians or judges, they all need to go down and be punished for the havoc they have wreaked on our county. We welcome this investigation and look forward to their findings."

Comment by blogger Bob: That my clients may be getting retaliated against because I couldn't stand what Ramos represented and I ran against Ramos to try and get him to clean it up or get replaced, is the saddest part of this. I personally hope any compromised members of the bench are not given a free ride--hell, most of the people on the bench are hand picked and or approved by Ramos during the Governor's review of judicial applications; I have felt more squeezing on things that I routinely have won. In the last 6 months, I have lost more substantive motions in civil cases than I have over the last twenty (oh my, its been almost 25 now that I think of it) years practicing in both state and federal court--I am not doing a poorer job. Its been ugly.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

How did the Daily Press know what the final results would be on the DA's race an hour BEFORE the 1st Results were put up??

Since holding Ramos' feet to the fire has been a problem, I decided to start archiving some of his few quotes appearing in the media (since Ellis was his mouth piece during the campaign):

Ramos takes strong lead in DA race | strong, bernardino, takes - Local News - Victorville Daily Press

But........in the process I noticed some of the same odd conduct I have seen since 1996 (the year of the Gingrich contract on America).

Results reported almost suggest that election margins might be predetermined (in certain races?); as of 8:48 pm on June 8, 2010, the Victorville Daily Press is claiming to have received a report that Ramos had 54% of the vote, Conaway 27% of the vote and Guzman 19% of the vote with 100% of the precincts counted when in fact less than 20% of the precincts had been counted--was the Daily Press getting advance notice on the numbers consistent with a pre-determined fix??

At 12:57 on June 9, 2010, the Daily Press reports: 53.72% for Ramos, 27.37% for Conaway and 18.97% for Guzman, which totals 100.6% of the votes--hmm (obviously an error)--but putting aside the .6 error, the percentage spread is the same? How likely?

In the 7 hours of results that followed the closing of the polls and the Daily Press' first report, the percentages did not change--as of the Registrar's update on June 9, 2010 at 3:53 am, the count was again 53.72% for Ramos, 27.31% for Conaway and 18.97% for Guzman. Its almost like the winner's percentage (and maybe the winner itself) was pre-determined!

It is statistically impossible to have the exact percentage spread between three candidates down to the 100ths of a percentage point unless 100% of the vote was counted by 8:48 p on June 8, 2010--which other reports from the registrar contradict. A rough sampling shows the same phenomenon repeated in other races which suggests a deliberate hand in the data manipulation process!

How did the Daily Press know by 8:48 pm on June 8, 2010 that when 100% of the vote would be counted, the percentages of vote cast per candidate would be the same at each and every reporting benchmark? Or were they and the Registrar projecting the votes or reporting the computer's pre-final count tally based on programming?

Additionally, since the initial vote cont that came out was VBM (votes by mail) and that was 72,132 and the precinct turnout was 86,522 for a total votes cast of 158,654, and the total vote count for the DA race was 134,737, there is a vote drop off of 23,927. Were there votes cast but not counted or is it a true drop off?

I called to ask the registrar about the software used by the counter (a Sequoia 400-C), the tabulator and compiler so I can check to see if there have been reported problems in other parts of the country. Do you think I have been called by the registrar? Nah

The corruption drum beats on??