San Bernardino County sheriff’s employees are seeking an emergency order from the California Supreme Court to prohibit law enforcement agencies from retroactively releasing police disciplinary records under a new law.

The statute, set to take effect Jan. 1, would allow the public to obtain police personnel records for officers involved in the use of deadly force, sustained allegations of sexual assault and sustained misconduct. The law, Senate Bill 1421, would shatter 40 years of police secrecy under special confidentiality rules for officers.

But as departments gear up for what they believe will be a onslaught of requests next week, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Employees’ Benefit Association asked the state’s high court for an immediate order banning enforcement of the new law for incidents that occurred before Jan. 1, 2019. Essentially, no shootings or other forms of misconduct before that date could be considered for release if the order is granted.

“SEBA is very concerned about any plans to retroactively apply Senate Bill 1421,” said SEBA President Grant Ward. “We believe retroactive application violates our members’ rights and we hope the California Supreme Court will consider the serious issues raised by our legal challenge.”

The group is seeking an immediate stay, pointing to the short, 10-day deadline for agencies to comply with requests for the personnel records.

The law, as proposed by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, makes no mention of whether records should be released retroactively. Large police agencies say that would create an overwhelming request for records and be too large a burden to fulfill.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore wrote to Skinner that the law, if applied in a retroactive manner, would be “exceptionally burdensome and would require significant reallocation of front-line investigative personnel,” such that “the workload on the men and women of the LAPD could prove to be well beyond any reasonable expectation given the sheer volume of complaints and incidents maintained by that agency.”

The court request from the San Bernardino sheriff’s union said police privacy could be irreparably harmed.

“Petitioner has no plain, speedy or adequate remedy … to obtain prompt and final resolution of this controversy so as to prevent irreparable harm and violation of the right of peace officers to confidentiality of their peace officer personnel records and information,” the motion said.

Before the new law, California was believed to have the most strict set of police confidentiality protections. Skinner’s bill was expected to go a long way toward police transparency and accountability, supporters have said.

The San Bernardino County sheriff’s union said that if state justices don’t act, it would prompt several other cases with conflicting resolutions.

To the courts, she was just a case number.

It was impersonal because, at the time, she was one in a long line of “crack babies,” which is what newborns like her were called in 1996.

Today, she has a name; Nancy Elizabeth Palmer. And even though she came into the world with little chance of surviving her birth mother’s addiction to crack (along with methamphetamine and opioids and anything she could get her hands on), Palmer is more than OK.

These days, the condition is known as “neonatal abstinence syndrome,” and it describes a newborn who has been exposed, in utero, to a harmful drug or alcohol.

And data does show that children can die, or experience profound physical difficulties, as a result of being exposed to drugs in the womb. A 2008 study in Tennessee found that drug-exposed infants are more likely to develop learning disabilities and stay in the hospital much longer, an average of 16.9 days compared to 2.1 days for other newborns.

Other studies show that drug-exposed babies cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep alive as newborns and even more money in health expenses later in life.

RELATED: Born on drugs: Babies from addicted moms are increasing at an alarming rate in California

But when the “crack baby epidemic” of the 1980s and ’90s was raging, many experts offered stark, long-term forecasts, saying the United States of the early 21st century would include a population of drug-exposed people who grew up with permanently impaired brains and psyches.

That didn’t come true. And a 2016 report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found those earlier forecasts were wildly overblown.

“Dire predictions of reduced intelligence and social skills in babies born to mothers who used crack cocaine while pregnant during the 1980s — so-called “crack babies” — were grossly exaggerated,” NIDA researchers wrote.

“However, the fact that most of these children do not show serious overt deficits should not be overinterpreted to indicate that there is no cause for concern.”

Palmer is an example of how good medical treatment — and even better parenting — can help turn a tough start into a great life.

Different outcome

“The doctors didn’t think I was going to make it. And if I did make it, I wouldn’t be able to function properly,” said Palmer, now a 22-year-old communications senior at Concordia University who plans to become a licensed drug and alcohol counselor.

Aside from some nerve damage, Palmer is surviving with few problems.

Fostered and then adopted by Orange County Rescue Mission CEO Jim Palmer and his wife, Michelle, Nancy Palmer is trying to give back to the addicted community that created her.

The number of drug-exposed infants born in California nearly tripled over the decade between 2008 and 2017, from 1,862 to 5,050. In Orange County, where Nancy lives, the number jumped from 84 in 2008 to 192 in 2017.

Nancy knows little about her birth mother; even less about her birth father. “He’s just a name on the birth certificate.”

Jim Palmer tried to help the birth mother regain custody, when Nancy was little, but the woman just stopped coming to court. So the Palmers nurtured the baby, who suffered as many as 15 seizures a day even as a toddler.

“My heart was going out to this little baby girl,” said Jim Palmer. “The first time I held her she was going through a seizure.”

The seizures damaged her nerve endings, says Nancy. As a toddler, she would walk into walls and not feel a thing.

“I have a very high pain tolerance,” Palmer says. “My nerves are still fried.”

After six weeks in a hospital, Palmer was placed in Olive Crest, a children’s home system, where Jim Palmer found her in 1996. His family previously had fostered two boys and later fostered another girl. All were ultimately adopted.

Doctors didn’t know how the drug exposure would affect Nancy’s brain growth. But, aside from dyslexia and an allergy to tobacco, Nancy Palmer says she turned out pretty much normal.

“I grew up like any other child, maybe just a little more hyper,” she says. “I beat the odds. They said I wouldn’t live past 3 years old. Now, I’m 22 and going to college.”

For awhile, she hated her birth mother; hated that she couldn’t beat her addiction to win back her baby girl. But, today, Nancy speaks of that “hatred” in the past tense.

She’s made peace with her life, noting that “everybody deserves a second chance.”

“Because your parents made a mistake, doesn’t mean you’ll make the same mistake.”

Family structure

Think of people like Melissa and Andrew Ferguson as the safety net in the opioid era.

The Buena park couple is too young to have raised any “crack babies,” but over the past decade or so they have been foster parents to dozens of other drug-exposed babies, giving each a fresh start on life.

On a wall inside their Buena Park living room, above two well worn brown sofas, hangs a sign that reads “Family is Forever.” It’s more than a feel-good slogan; for the Fergusons, the three words are a lifestyle.

“We build an extension of our family with all the littles that come through our door and their families,” said Melissa Ferguson, 36.

“Even after our time is over with loving these littles, and helping to encourage their parents, we let them know they can always call if they need us.”

On occasion, the Fergusons have found it impossible to say goodbye.

They have adopted three of their one-time foster children, rounding out a family that also includes two biological children, a 12-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter.

“It wasn’t that we wanted to save a child as much as we wanted to build our family,”  Melissa said. “We wanted a child that just needed a family.”

In 2013, the couple attended a workshop led by experts at the Orange County Department of Social Services. It was aimed at recruiting foster parents to care for children who’d been exposed to drugs at birth.

They learned about the challenges those children often face, and the difficulties that caring for such children can wreak on many families. They painted a tough — even bleak — picture of what it’s like to care for children who have been removed from the care of their biological parents.

“They give you the worst-case scenario,” said Andrew, 39.  “They try to scare you off.”

Still, Melissa left the meeting with one idea in her head:

“I thought, ‘We can do this!’”

For a nine-week stretch, the Fergusons diligently attended foster care classes. They learned how to help children handle emotional and physical trauma. They learned about visitation rights. They learned about child attachment issues.

County officials also thoroughly interviewed the Fergusons and their two biological children, as well as family and friends.

“They look at everything in your life,” Melissa said.”They want to make sure you are capable of integrating them into your life.

About five weeks after the last class the Fergusons became licensed foster parents. Soon after that — around 3 p.m on Halloween of 2013 — their small family doubled in size.

A social worker phoned Melissa and told her a 5-year-old boy and his 2-year-old sister, who had been removed from their home, were in immediate need of a foster family.

Melissa and Andrew raced to DSS headquarters in Santa Ana to pick up the children.

While the girl was happy with the Fergusons, her brother had difficulty adjusting.

“We had them three weeks,” Melissa recalled.

Soon, a foster child came to the Fergusons’ home to stay longer. Others followed, some leaving after a short period, some staying longer.

The easiest part

One who stayed was Matthew.

His 20-year-old biological mother used methamphetamine, alcohol, and marijuana during her pregnancy leaving him severely exposed to drugs.

Despite the medical challenges, the Fergusons knew they wanted to adopt him.

“Once we got him, I was on board,” Andrew said.

Melissa quit her job as a medical assistant to keep up with Matthew’s numerous medical appointments.

His sight and hearing were compromised; his neurological development was uncertain. He suffered from seizures.

It took a year for Matthew to crawl, and about seven months after that before he could walk. And even when he could walk his muscle tone was so delayed that he needed leg braces to get around.

Since then, however, he has made remarkable progress.

“He overcame everything they (doctors) told him he would not overcome,” Melissa said proudly. “He beats his own drum. He was slightly behind everyone, but charged through. Now he is off the charts and doing really good.”

Still, the Fergusons had more love to give. On June 7, 2018, they adopted two girls, both of whom were born exposed to methamphetamine.

The girls, Amelia and Zoe, each about 2 when they came to the Fergusons, aren’t biologically related. And their medical challenges aren’t as severe as those faced by Matthew.

“Zoe is our girly girl and Amelia is our sassy little butterfly,” Melissa said.

The Fergusons don’t plan to adopt any more children. But they say they will continue providing a loving foster home to children and offer any support they can to the biological parents.

“Everyone assumes opening up your heart is the hardest part to fostering,” she said.

“Little do they know, that’s the easiest.”

A coalition of media groups is formally opposing an effort by a San Bernardino County sheriff’s union to block the release of police disciplinary files under a new transparency law set to take effect Jan. 1.

The group, led by the First Amendment Coalition, filed papers Friday, Dec. 28, with the state Supreme Court opposing what it described as the union’s last-ditch attempt to “gut” the law. The move came about two weeks after the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Employees Benefit Association asked the high court to ban the retroactive release of files, leaving secret the records about incidents that occurred before Jan. 1, 2019.

The request from San Bernardino centers on timing. Mike Rains, the attorney representing the union, said that because the law doesn’t specifically detail the time period that records should be public it should apply only to new incidents.

The First Amendment Coalition contends that the Legislature intended the statute to tell the public about police misconduct, old and new. California has the strictest restraints in the nation on the release of law enforcement records, with police secrecy laws dating back 40 years.

The new law, introduced by state Senator Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, is considered an attempt to tear down the veil of secrecy. Portions of personnel files could be made public for officers involved in shootings, serious injury, sustained sexual assault and sustained misconduct.

The San Bernardino County union is seeking to keep the past under wraps.

“It’s clear this is not what the Legislature intended with this sweeping and landmark legislation,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition.

“Obviously, the Legislature wanted to open up police misconduct files, irrespective of when they were created. The police union’s rushed and last-minute effort should be promptly denied by the Supreme Court. The public deserves to see these records and has a legal right to do so as of January 1.”

Joining the coalition in the effort are the Los Angeles Times, KQED, and the California News Publishers Association.

The fight against the release of files is not only going on in court. The city of Inglewood recently voted to destroy thousands of police personnel files dating beyond the five-year state mandate for storing records.

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday batted aside an attempt by a San Bernardino County sheriff’s union to block the release of police disciplinary records under a new law that took effect this week, making most of the records public for the first time in 40 years.

Justices rejected a request by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Employees’ Benefit Association to delay the records law, Senate Bill 1421, because it did not address whether older and existing records were eligible for release. The union argued that records should be public only for incidents occurring after Jan. 1, when the law went into effect.

The high court did not explain its rationale in the one-line ruling denying the union’s request.

Carrie Tichenor, a spokeswoman for the union’s law firm, Rains, Lucia, Stern, said the Supreme Court’s decision not to rule on the merits of the case opens the door for police unions across California to take their cases to local courts.

That is what the Los Angeles Police Protective League did this week, winning a lower court order temporarily prohibiting the city from disclosing personnel records. A hearing on that court order will be held Feb. 5, said Tichenor, whose law firm also represents the Los Angeles police union.

“It is possible that numerous lawsuits will be pursued by peace officer labor organizations in local courts throughout the state to prevent public agencies from releasing confidential information which is prohibited by law,” Tichenor said.

“The possibility of multiple lawsuits being filed and litigated in numerous counties throughout the state, and the potential for conflicting decisions at the Superior Court level, was the impetus for the action we filed” on behalf of the San Bernardino County union, she said.

The union said it is exploring its options to continue the legal fight.

The effort by the San Bernardino County group was challenged by the First Amendment Coalition, the California News Publishers Association and the Los Angeles Times.

David Snyder, executive director of the coalition, said the ruling was a big victory for transparency.

“The court thankfully got this right,” Snyder said. “This was a last-ditch effort by the police union to undermine SB 1421. There is now a broad range of records the public has access to.”

Proposed by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, the new statute allows the release of some personnel and disciplinary records for police officers involved in shootings resulting in death or great bodily injury, as well as files for sustained sexual assault and sustained misconduct.

Telephone numbers, home addresses, the names of family members and other personal information will remain exempt from disclosure. Skinner in a recent interview said that it was the right time for more transparency, “to create … sunshine.”

On the eve of the law taking effect, the city of Inglewood ordered the destruction of thousands of files older than the state’s five-year requirement for keeping documents. Other police agencies have said they will comply.

Since 1976, California law enforcement officers have been protected by statutes and court rulings — the strictest in the nation — that make it illegal to release virtually all police personnel records, including those involving wrongdoing and disciplinary action.

Efforts to undo those protections have been rejected under withering opposition by law enforcement unions, which argue that releasing confidential personnel information would endanger police lives, spur lawsuits and make it more difficult for officers to do their jobs.

The new law could put a hole in the police veil of secrecy.

A state watchdog agency that investigates and disciplines California judges has charged an appellate justice in Los Angeles with nine counts of sexual harassment and misconduct, including an allegation that he squeezed the breasts of another jurist.

The 17-page complaint filed Jan. 4 by the Commission on Judicial Performance accuses Second District Court of Appeal Justice Jeffrey W. Johnson of violating the judicial code of ethics by touching and speaking to co-workers in a sexually charged manner.

Johnson’s attorney, Paul Meyer of Costa Mesa, on Monday denied accusations against the veteran jurist, who he said passed forensic lie detector tests. Meyer added he would present written documents from the alleged victims that contradict their accusations.

“Justice Johnson looks forward to a fair and careful review of the facts,” Meyer said.

If the charges are upheld, Johnson — a 58-year-old former federal magistrate who was appointed to the state appellate court in 2009 — could be removed, censured or otherwise disciplined.

According to the complaint, the alleged misconduct began the year after he was sworn onto the appellate bench. In one case, the complaint said, he and a female justice were discussing a difficult hearing over which she had presided.

Although the complaint identifies the jurist, the Southern California News Group does not name sexual assault victims.

“You told Justice (name withheld), ‘Well, I should kiss and squeeze your (breasts) to make you feel better,’ or words to that effect. You then squeezed one of her breasts,” the complaint charged.

The complaint adds that Johnson repeatedly hugged the female justice over the next few years and put his hand on her breasts. He later told the justice that his actions could not be considered sexual harassment because they were judicial equals, the complaint said.

The document includes complaints from Johnson’s female California Highway Patrol bodyguards, attorneys at the Second District appellate court and other legal workers that he allegedly made sexual comments, often while inebriated and sometimes while discussing his marriage.

“You engaged in a pattern of poor demeanor towards colleagues and court employees,” the document said.

In one case, Johnson is accused of telling his CHP bodyguard and driver that he wanted to see her without clothes and then described performing a sexual act on her. On another occasion, he is charged with putting his hand on her thigh while she drove. Johnson allegedly acted in an “unwelcome, undignified, discourteous, and offensive” manner, in violation of the judicial code of ethics, the complaint said.

A hearing will be conducted by special masters appointed by the California Supreme Court. Commission staff attorney Emma Bradford will serve as examiner for the commission. At the conclusion of the hearing, the special masters will submit a report to the commission, which will then decide whether to discipline Johnson. That decision could be subject to review by the Supreme Court.

A Los Angeles appellate justice accused of sexual misconduct spanning 20 years accepted responsibility Tuesday for some of his actions, but denied the more serious allegation of squeezing the breasts of another jurist.

Second District Court of Appeal Justice Jeffrey W. Johnson, in a formal answer to the nine-count civil complaint filed this month by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, said he would take responsibility for his mistakes, but not for allegations he dubbed untrue.

“None of the allegations here involve a judicial act, conduct involving a case or person before the court, or an allegation that Justice Johnson has failed to perform, or was unable to perform, his judicial duties,” the document said. “In short, all allegations relate to private, non-public social comments and gestures.”

If the charges are upheld, Johnson — a 58-year-old former federal magistrate appointed to the state appellate court in 2009 by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — could be removed, censured or otherwise disciplined.

In one case, the complaint said, he and a female justice were discussing a difficult hearing over which she had presided. Although the complaint identifies the justice, the Southern California News Group does not name sexual assault victims.

“You told Justice (name withheld), ‘Well, I should kiss and squeeze your (breasts) to make you feel better,’ or words to that effect. You then squeezed one of her breasts,” the complaint charged.

The complaint adds that Johnson repeatedly hugged the female justice over the next few years and put his hand on her breasts at times. He later told the justice that his actions could not be considered sexual harassment because they were judicial equals, the complaint said.

The document includes complaints from Johnson’s female California Highway Patrol bodyguards, attorneys at the Second District appellate court and other legal workers to whom he allegedly made sexual comments, often while inebriated and sometimes while discussing his marriage.

Johnson, in the answer filed by Orange County attorney Paul Meyer, denied assaulting the female justice and harassing one of the CHP officers. However, he said in the document that the other allegations — inappropriate social comments and interactions — even if true, did not violate judicial rules.

Johnson noted that purported witnesses to the charges by the female justice failed to corroborate her statements. Additionally, she continued to make endearing statements to him as late as 2018, discrediting her claims.

As far as the CHP officer, Johnson was too busy at the time dealing with a threat of violence to his family to be making sexual advances to his bodyguard, the document said.

Johnson’s attorney went on to discredit the other charges, saying, “The bulk of the additional, less serious allegations appear to have been included for the sole purpose of bolstering the untrue and therefore unprovable claims” of the justice and the CHP officer.

In Johnson’s response, he said “customary communications and pleasantries in which many judicial officers have engaged and undoubtedly still engage have been recast in hindsight into something sinister.”

A hearing into the allegations will be conducted by special masters appointed by the California Supreme Court. Commission staff attorney Emma Bradford will serve as examiner for the commission. At the conclusion of the hearing, the special masters will submit a report to the commission, which will then decide whether to discipline Johnson. That decision could be subject to review by the Supreme Court.

Irvine is the financially healthiest big city in America, while New York is the sickest, according to a new study by a nonprofit dedicated to financial transparency in the public sector.

California’s other big cities fall firmly in the middle, with Southern California burgs healthier than many of their Northern California counterparts, says Chicago-based watchdog group Truth in Accounting.

The “taxpayer burden” — what each resident would have to pay to eliminate a city’s debts — hit $7,200 per person in Anaheim, $6,000 in Los Angeles, $5,100 in Santa Ana, $5,000 in San Diego, $3,700 in Riverside and $1,300 in Long Beach. Meanwhile, Irvine boasts a “taxpayer surplus” of $4,400 per person.

Up north, San Francisco is in the worst position of California’s big cities, with a taxpayer burden of $22,600 per person. Oakland is on its heels at $21,100; San Jose, $10,200; and Sacramento, $4,000. Surpluses were found in Stockton — which has emerged healthy from its 2013 bankruptcy — and Fresno, each racking up a surplus of $2,500 per person.

What is it?

These figures reflect what cities owe their workers for public pensions and retiree health benefits that are guaranteed, but not funded.

That means old cities with their own police and fire departments are saddled with more unfunded debt — public safety pensions are the most expensive — than newer cities like Irvine, which contract out for many services. That means the newer “contract cities” carry little to none of the pension and retiree health care burden their elder compatriots shoulder.

Truth in Accounting examined the nation’s 75 largest cities, finding the average taxpayer burden was $7,500.

“Taxpayer burdens occur when politicians decide to make promises on paper without fully funding the programs on the balance sheet,” TIA founder and CEO Sheila Weinberg said in a statement. “The result is disingenuous to civil servants who are counting on many of these retirement programs, and a betrayal of future generations who may have to pay for them.”

At the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year, 63 of the nation’s 75 biggest cities did not have enough money to pay all of their bills, the study found. The total unfunded debt of all of them combined is about $330 billion.

“This means that to balance the budget, elected officials have not included the true costs of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers,” the report says.

Cities’ pension debt accounted for $189.1 billion of the shortfall, while other post-employment benefits — mainly retiree health care — totaled $139.2 billion.

A new financial reporting rule kicked in for the 2017-18 fiscal year, requiring cities and states to report all unfunded “other post-employment benefits” — mainly retiree health care liabilities — on their balance sheets. Expect red ink to grow with the next reporting cycle.

‘Sunshine cities’

Irvine was the top dog again, even though its taxpayer surplus declined from $5,200 to $4,400 since last year.

On the up side, “Very few U.S. cities are free of bonded debt, and Irvine is one of them,” the report said. But, there’s a down side, too: “The city’s unfunded pension debt increased by more than 25 percent because employer contributions and income earned from the pension plan assets did not keep up with the increase in benefits promised.”

In other words, the promised pensions are eating into Irvine’s surplus.

“Irvine is excited and proud to be the No. 1 city based upon fiscal strength for a third straight year,” said city spokesman Craig Reem. “This ranking indicates that we are working (on the next budget) from a place of strength.”

‘Sinkhole cities’

San Francisco remains one of the “Bottom Five Sinkhole Cities” with a taxpayer burden of $22,600 — but that’s down $4,900 from the year before thanks to strong earnings on its pension plan assets. All told, the City by the Bay has $7.9 billion available in assets to pay $14.2 billion in bills, the report said.

Anaheim was just below the nationwide big-city average of $7,500 per person, with $1.2 billion available in assets to pay $2 billion in bills.

Los Angeles’ taxpayer burden of $6,000 decreased by $1,200 since last year, again because of good returns on its pension investments. The city has $12.7 billion available in assets to pay $20.4 billion worth of bills.

Santa Ana also doesn’t have enough money to pay its bills, with $296.2 million available in assets to pay $855.7 million in debt. Santa Ana officials had no comment.

Riverside is better off than many others, but still owes more than it owns. It had $778.8 million available in assets to pay $1.2 billion in bills. Riverside officials also declined comment.

Long Beach is in fair shape, with $2.9 billion available in assets to pay $3.1 billion in debt.

“Sinkhole” is not a designation city fathers much appreciate.

Anaheim says this analysis doesn’t offer a complete picture. The home of Disneyland has “enterprise districts” — an electric and water utility, as well as a convention center — that pay their own way with their own revenues.

Of Anaheim’s $777 million in unfunded pension obligations, $174 million belongs to the enterprise operations, with $603 million falling to general city obligations, said spokesman Mike Lyster. Enterprise pension and other costs shouldn’t be assigned to Anaheim taxpayers, he said.

‘Not a numbers game’

Truth in Accounting’s Weinberg is not sympathetic to the arguments made by the likes of Anaheim.

“If something happens and pensioners can’t be paid, are they going to go after those enterprise funds?” she asked. “They’re going to go after Anaheim’s taxpayers.”

This is not just a numbers game, Weinberg stressed — it’s about the integrity of representative democracy itself.

“I worry about all the talk of surpluses I’m hearing from state and local governments. ‘We have extra money. Should we cut taxes? increase salaries?’ Citizens don’t realize that, while officials are claiming to have balanced budgets and budget surpluses, they still have a pension credit card debt.

“If citizens cannot be informed and knowledgeable in the financial decision-making process — if they’re not told the truth about these numbers — it undermines our form of government,” she said.

Truth in Accounting is a politically unaffiliated organization that makes no policy recommendations beyond improving budgeting and accounting practices in a manner that enhances the public’s understanding of government finances, it says.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will not release disciplinary records for his investigators under the state’s new transparency law until the courts rule on whether the statute is retroactive, saying that for now disclosure would invade the officers’ rights.

“Historically, peace officers have had a significant privacy right in their personnel records … the public interest in accessing these records is clearly outweighed by the public’s interest in protecting privacy rights,” said Becerra’s office, referring to police secrecy laws approved more than 40 years ago. “We will not disclose any records that pre-date January 1, 2019, at this time.”

The attorney general’s decision, in a letter circulated among city attorneys, has influenced agencies deciding whether to comply with the new law or wait for the outcome of court challenges by police unions trying to block access to existing records.

“Please hold on to your money,” La Verne Assistant City Attorney Cary S. Reisman wrote the Southern California News Group on Monday, citing the attorney general’s opinion and reneging on an earlier decision to supply the files in exchange for $31.80 in copying costs.

California law enforcement unions and some cities are using, in the words of one legislator, a “smokescreen,” to fight the new law, which took effect Jan. 1.

Unions in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties have obtained or are seeking court orders temporarily blocking police agencies from complying with the new law until a full hearing can be conducted. Some cities, such as Buena Park, Montebello, Glendora, Huntington Park, Oxnard, Ventura and now La Verne, are simply refusing to comply without the benefit of a court order.

At issue is the language of the bill, which is silent on whether it is retroactive — that is, whether it applies to police records existing before 2019. Police agencies are required by law to maintain such records for five years.

State Sen. Nancy Skinner, who authored the transparency law, said in an interview that she intended the statute to apply to existing records on police shootings and confirmed incidents of sexual assault and dishonesty. Skinner said the court challenges speak volumes about the police unions that are trying to keep disciplinary records hidden.

“The language of the bill is very clear … if (a record) exists, it is disclosable,” said Skinner, D-Berkeley. “This whole notion (that the law must state it is retroactive) is a smokescreen. … The associations that did not support the law, they will go to court. It’s round two.”

Attorney Jacob Kalinski, representing many of the Southern California unions, said the law violates the rights of first-responders who made career decisions based on their expectation of privacy.

“I disagree with that characterization of a smokescreen,” Kalinski said. “I just don’t see why we all wouldn’t want to wait for the courts to come down with a ruling before reacting.”

It could take months before the challenges wind through the lower courts, appellate courts and, finally, the state Supreme Court.

While some cities are citing the retroactivity argument, others are charging tens of thousands of dollars for the public to obtain the records. For instance, Anaheim wants $96,000 to copy and remove nonpublic information from audio and video evidence produced by such devices as body cameras.

The city estimates the process will take more than 1,200 hours at $80 an hour. City lawyers point to a 2018 appellate ruling — the National Lawyers Guild v. the city of Hayward — that allows municipalities to charge for the direct costs of copying and redacting a document.

In San Diego County, sheriff’s officials want $30,617 to copy and redact several hours of audio and videos dealing with confirmed sexual assaults by deputies. San Diego County estimates its hourly cost at $33, much lower than in Anaheim, but still high.

Several agencies have already complied with the law and provided records to the Southern California News Group, including police departments in Laguna Beach, Colton, Pomona, Escondido and Porterville, as well as the Palomar Community College District.

About 25 agencies, mostly small city departments and school police, did not have any responsive documents for the five-year period, 2014 to 2019, requested by the news group.

Nine people injured when a truck plowed into them in Fullerton early Sunday, Feb. 10, remain hospitalized while police work to determine whether the driver was under the influence of marijuana.

Christopher Solis, 22, of Anaheim crashed a red Toyota Tacoma into the crowd and ended up with it wedged into a tree just before 2 a.m., police said. Some people were trapped under the pickup truck while others rushed to try to get them out.

The victims, ages 18 to 49, suffered injuries ranging from moderate to critical. On Monday, they were still hospitalized and expected to survive.

Two of the victims were taken to Orange County Global Medical Center’s Trauma Center in Santa Ana, a hospital spokesman said.

Christine Navarro, 21, a Cal Poly Pomona student, suffered a dislocated hip, a broken rib and multiple back fractures.  She was in stable condition Monday, spokesman Jeff Corless said.

Another patient, a 21-year-old man who was not identified at his request, was also in stable condition, Corless said.

Witnesses said several good Samaritans scrambled to the aid of the injured and helped first-responders lift the truck enough to free those trapped beneath it.

Investigators were examining surveillance video from cameras around the scene, including dash-cam footage from a car driving from the opposite direction as the truck.

“We’ve heard that there was an altercation or disturbance,” Fullerton police Lt. Jon Radus said Monday, Feb. 11, but officers are still investigating those claims.

Hundreds of people were in the area at the time in Fullerton’s SOCO (South of Commonwealth) District, which is a popular nighttime hangout. The victims were in a crowd near a parking structure where many patrons from the nearby bars and restaurants leave their vehicles.

As a precaution, several Fullerton police officers typically patrol the downtown area on weekends around the time that bars and clubs close, Radus said.

“We have 66 establishments that serve alcohol in a small area and that often creates a situation where altercations can take place,” he said.

Solis was arrested at the scene, near 100 W. Santa Fe Ave., on suspicion of felony driving under the influence of drugs and causing great bodily injury. Radus said Solis was examined by a drug-recognition expert who deemed him impaired. Toxicology tests were being conducted to determine whether Solis was high on marijuana, according to authorities.

According to reports, Solis was initially parked near a barbecue restaurant and backed into a building, breaking a taillight. Solis then allegedly began driving away, ignoring calls from passengers in his own vehicle to stop.

After some of the passengers got out of his truck, Solis allegedly went on to hit the crowd and finally a tree.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge is poised to strike down challenges to a new state transparency law that requires police agencies to disclose misconduct records.

Judge Mitchell Beckloff on Friday tentatively rejected separate requests by two police unions to extend temporary court orders now preventing two agencies from complying with the new law. The ruling — expected to be finalized by Tuesday — applies only to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but could influence other agencies that are watching closely such legal challenges.

It would be the second time in recent days that a California judge has ruled against police unions fighting to keep sealed police personnel and disciplinary records that have been secret for more than 40 years. Unions in court cases throughout the state are arguing that the law, Senate Bill 1421 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, does not apply to incidents that occurred before the law took effect on Jan. 1.

The language of the law does not expressly state that it is retroactive, the unions argue. Skinner, however, has said she intended the statute to apply to all existing documents on police use of deadly force, confirmed sexual misconduct and confirmed dishonesty.

Attorney Kelly Aviles, who is representing a collaboration of media outfits in the fight to unseal the records in Los Angeles and Orange counties, said Friday’s tentative victory is likely among the first of many.

“Finally, it’s confirmation that the union’s claims have no merit,” said Aviles of La Verne. “It’s one more step in the direction of transparency.”

Attorneys for the Los Angeles Police Protective League and the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff’s could not be reached for comment Friday night.

Aviles said they would likely appeal the decision. Most watchers on both sides believe the cases ultimately will reach the California Supreme Court.

A ruling in the Orange County case, pitting the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs against a media collaboration, is expected any day.

A San Diego County college police officer quietly left his job in 2016 after he was accused of fondling part-time dispatchers.

A veteran Pomona police officer resigned under pressure in 2016 for having sex with an underage waitress he met while on duty.

And two Brea police officers were allowed to resign for dishonesty — one sold Brea police patches on eBay for $95 each while on duty, and the other failed to arrest a former girlfriend he suspected of driving drunk.

Records detailing the misconduct cases were among the first released in Southern California under a new police transparency law that took effect Jan. 1. Police unions throughout California are fighting in court to keep secret law enforcement personnel records. But the documents dribbling out under SB 1421, a bill authored by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, offer a peek at what lies behind the blue curtain.

The unions contend in court that the law — which requires the release of documents involving police use of deadly force and confirmed cases of sexual assault and dishonesty — doesn’t apply to incidents that occurred before Jan. 1. That means only records dealing with incidents beginning in 2019 can be disclosed, the unions contend.

Media coalitions are battling the unions, fighting for what they say is the true intent of the law, that all existing records are subject to disclosure.

A judge in Contra Costa County ruled recently that the law is, indeed, retroactive. But the lower court decision is not precedent-setting. A ruling in Orange County Superior Court also is expected any day. Ultimately, lawyers say, the issue will have to be settled by the state Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, some departments not restricted by a court order — including the Pomona, Brea and Palomar College police departments — have elected to comply with the law. Names of witnesses and victims have been redacted from their documents.

At the 30,000-student Palomar College in San Marcos, Magauli “Vic” So’oto, 56, served as a public safety officer since at least 2012 and earned about $101,295 yearly in salary and benefits, according to records kept by Transparent California and LexisNexis websites. He previously worked for the Oceanside Police Department, with the agency listed as his home address since 2002.

Documents obtained by Southern California News Group under SB 1421 show that in March 2016, So’oto allegedly forced his hand down a dispatcher’s blouse and caressed her breasts while she was on a ride-along. The dispatcher had just finished her shift.

So’oto also drove to an adjacent hotel and suggested they get a room so he could give her a “full-body rubdown.” She asked to be driven back to the police station, the documents said.

According to the investigation report, So’oto allegedly fondled the shoulders of another female dispatcher and gave unsolicited back rubs to women in the station. He also was accused of unwanted sexual comments.

So’oto denied any wrongdoing during the internal investigation, which concluded he had been dishonest and had violated sexual harassment statutes.

“There was credible evidence to conclude that Officer So’oto had placed his hand down (her) blouse and offered physical resistance and restraint when she attempted to move away from him and/or remove his hand,” said the investigation for the college by attorney Jeffrey B. Love.

“This fact finder concludes that Officer So’oto was not truthful in order to mask his inappropriate behavior in an attempt to evade responsibility for his violations of policy and law. As such, the allegations are all, therefore, sustained.”

In Pomona, Stephen Perez was a 20-year corporal accused of having sex with a 17-year-old waitress he had been warned to stay away from, documents showed.

An investigation revealed that Perez, then 42, allegedly took the girl overnight to a Palm Springs hotel and had some kind of intimate relations with the her at the Pomona Police Officers’ Association headquarters.

Investigators found that Perez visited the girl’s home 40 to 50 times and texted her 4,550 times, including after he had been ordered not have any contact with her. Perez was estranged from his wife at the time of the relationship, the reports show.

“(You) claim that your off-duty conduct had no nexus to your job as corporal,” wrote former Police Chief Paul Capraro. “I find this argument absurd, given that one of your core duties was to investigate, arrest and assist in the prosecution of suspects charged (with) criminal conduct, including those charged with having illicit sexual intercourse with a minor.”

In Brea, Sgt. Michael Petronella was selling official department patches on eBay under the moniker “Patchhore.” An administrator saw the ad in 2014 and realized it looked similar to others that Petronella had posted in the past under the name, “Hobosurplus.”

The administrator, according to an investigative report, believed that Petronella would never again sell department property after he was warned previously. But there they were, Brea shoulder patches available for $95.

When asked, Petronella said he took the patches from a box that was just lying around. He told an interviewer that a lot of people collect police patches and he was unconcerned that they would be sold to people who could masquerade as cops.

In 2017, Brea Officer Jake Bogosian pulled over a car driven by a woman he had dated. She had a male passenger. Bogosian smelled alcohol on her breath and had her blow into a portable breathalyzer — she hit 0.153, almost twice the legal limit. Bogosian showed the breath test results to the driver, but did not look at them himself, documents said.

He told investigators he thought other officers were too busy to help him make an arrest, so he ordered the driver to call an Uber and let her off with a warning. In reality, five other  officers were available to help, said the investigative report.

Less than 20 minutes later, Bogosian saw the same truck being driven by the male passenger, who also allegedly was drunk.

Bogosian pulled him over and arrested him on suspicion of driving intoxicated, this time calling for backup from other officers.

An Orange County Superior Court judge has rejected an attempt by the union representing sheriff’s deputies to block the release of disciplinary records under a new state police transparency law.

Judge Nathan Scott ruled Thursday that public accountability trumped the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs’ fight to protect the privacy of its members. Although Scott let stand the seal on personnel documents until March 15 to give the association time to file an appeal, the union has announced it will not challenge the order.

“‘Openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy,” Scott said in his ruling. “Implicit in the democratic process is the notion that government should be accountable for its actions. In order to verify accountability, individuals must have access to government files.”

Across the state, courts are ruling against police unions who contend the new law does not apply to event that occurred before Jan.1, when the statute took effect. At least two police groups have filed appeals.

The law, Senate Bill 1421 by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, requires that files dealing with the use by police of deadly force and confirmed cases of sexual assault and dishonesty must be made public upon request — shattering police secrecy laws in force for more than 40 years.

In Orange County, the battle against the union was funded by the Los Angeles Times, the Voice of OC online newsroom and Southern California Public Radio.

Lawyer Kelly Aviles, representing the media, said Thursday that Judge Scott understood the issues, like other judges in Los Angeles and Contra Costa counties.

“We’re hoping the AOCDS realizes the lack of merit of their lawsuit and will stop fighting the disclosure of these important records,” Aviles said.

Tom Dominguez, union president, said the association is “disappointed in the court ruling” and flatly disagrees with it.

“Orange County peace officers don’t forfeit their constitutional rights when they pin on a badge,” Dominguez said.

Many police agencies are withholding documents, waiting to see the outcome of the court challenges. But some records are dribbling out from other departments that are not waiting. Those records reveal some police officers have been fired or encouraged to resign for such things as sexually assaulting dispatchers, having sex with an underage waitress, having intimate contact with a homeless woman and selling police shoulder patches on eBay.

This article has been updated to indicate the sheriff’s union has decided not to file an appeal.

Government workers do not have the inviolable right to buy credit for years of service they haven’t actually worked and thereby boost retirement benefits, the California Supreme Court concluded Monday in a widely anticipated decision.

But the court dodged the elephant in the room — whether state and local governments have the right to alter pension formulas for current workers going forward.

California has long considered public pension promises as contracts etched in stone, arguing that retirement formulas in place on the first day of employment can be raised, but never lowered, and any attempt to do so violates the California constitution.

This has come to be known as the “California Rule,” because other states allow such changes.

Monday’s decision on the purchase of “air time” had something for everyone to hate, and left both sides reading the tea leaves as cases more directly challenging the California Rule come before the Supreme Court.

“There was always some question about whether air time was a vested benefit,” said Ted Toppin, chairman of Californians for Retirement Security, a coalition of public employee unions, in a statement.

“The decision was not unexpected. More importantly, the Supreme Court leaves intact the California Rule, holding that vested benefits cannot be impaired. Thankfully, the decision protects the retirement security of California’s nurses, teachers, firefighters, school employees and countless other public servants and retirees dependent on their hard-earned pensions.”

While Chuck Reed, pension reformer and former mayor of San Jose, called it “a good, solid win,” Carl DeMaio, fellow reformer and former San Diego city councilman, was deeply disappointed that the court punted.

“This is like someone on the Titanic saying, ‘I have a handy dandy bucket and I’m going to scoop up some water, but I’m not going to do anything about the hole in the side of the ship,’ ” DeMaio said. “This is a ticking time bomb. We are running out of time.”

Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research pegs California’s unfunded pension burden at $331.7 billion — or $25,623 per California household —  as measured by pension plan officials assuming investment returns of about 7 percent.

But when measured on a “market basis” — assuming a lower investment return of 3 percent, which is what CalPERS uses for agencies wanting out of its system — the unfunded burden is a mammoth $1 trillion, or $78,265 per household.

Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, who has long championed pension reform, was circumspect.

“It’s sort of like half a loaf, telling us what we already know,” he said of the air-time ruling. “But when you give someone a pension benefit, it can’t be an elevator that only has an up button. You have to have a down button sometimes to protect the sustainability of the plan.”

Specifically, the ruling involves the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013, which enacted tweaks to the system proposed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown and adopted by the Legislature. PEPRA is expected to save money over the long haul, but contribute little in the short haul.

Monday’s decision focuses narrowly on the constitutionality of one PEPRA change — eliminating the opportunity for public workers to buy up to five years of “additional retirement service” credits.

“Participating employees could therefore receive pension benefits calculated on the basis of up to five years’ more public employment than they actually worked,” the court said. “PEPRA effectively repealed the statute granting public employees the opportunity to purchase ARS credit, although it did not alter the rights of employees who had already purchased such credit.”

Is buying air time a vested right protected by the contract clause that cannot be violated without running afoul of the state Constitution? No, it is not a vested right, the court concluded, affirming the decisions of lower courts.

All eyes are now on cases involving Alameda and Marin counties, pending before the Supreme Court and cutting closer to the heart of the California Rule. Lower courts have concluded that governments do, indeed, have wiggle room.

“While a public employee does have a ‘vested right’ to a pension, that right is only to a ‘reasonable’ pension — not an immutable entitlement to the most optimal formula of calculating the pension,” wrote Justice James Richman in the case involving Marin County.

“And the Legislature may, prior to the employee’s retirement, alter the formula, thereby reducing the anticipated pension. So long as the Legislature’s modifications do not deprive the employee of a ‘reasonable’ pension, there is no constitutional violation.”

Toppin, of Californians for Retirement Security, said that amounts to pulling the rug out from under public workers.

“It’s saying that the promises made to you when you were hired aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on,” Toppin said. “Obviously, we disagree with that ruling.”

The Supreme Court is where the scholarship is, Moorlach said. “We have to get it resolved. The longer we wait, the more these liabilities pile up.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order Wednesday placing a moratorium on the death penalty for all 737 inmates on California’s death row, ensuring that no executions will take place while he is governor, an administration source has confirmed.

Newsom’s order also will withdraw the state’s lethal injection protocol and immediately close the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison. The action, however, leaves intact all convictions and sentences, and does not provide for the release of any inmates, the source said.

“The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual,” Newsom said in a prepared statement obtained by the Southern California News Group. The action can be undone by a future governor.

“I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people,” said the Democratic governor. “In short, the death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”

Critics, however, say Newsom’s order undermines the will of the voters in California.

In November 2016, Californians passed a measure to speed up executions, the last of which occurred 13 years ago. Most of that measure, Proposition 66, was upheld by the state Supreme Court and a judge was reviewing California’s lethal injection protocol, which Newsom withdrew Wednesday.

As lieutenant governor, Newsom backed a competing ballot measure in 2016 to repeal the death penalty, which voters rejected.

“The arguments were fully and vigorously presented, and the people made their choice,” Kent Scheidegger, the legal director for the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, wrote in a December blog post. “They chose to mend it, not end it.”

Prosecutors: ‘Ill-considered’

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys on Tuesday blasted Newsom’s pending move.

“Governor Newsom, who supported the failed initiative to end the death penalty in 2006, is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty,” said a statement by Michele Hanisee, president of the association that represents 1,000 prosecutors in Los Angeles County.

Still, Newsom has indicated he believes voters are not happy with the death penalty.

“In California, we have the largest death row of any place in the Western Hemisphere — more than 700 prisoners,” he said. “And we have spent $5 billion since 1978 to keep those individuals on death row.”

‘Significant leap’ for opponents

Natasha Minsker, a lawyer who worked on death penalty issues in the state for more than a decade at the ACLU, called Newsom’s order “a significant leap forward for the movement to end the death penalty, both in California and across the country.”

“We have been asking for a governor in California to show leadership on this issue for a long time,” she said in an interview.

Newsom’s order recalls his decision just a few weeks into his first term as mayor of San Francisco ordering city officials to marry same-sex couples in 2004 — a move that won him national attention but was ultimately overturned in the courts.

This time, he appears to be on more solid legal ground: The state constitution clearly allows governors to delay executions, Minsker said.

Notorious killers on death row

The last person executed in California was Clarence Ray Allen, 76, in 2006. Allen had been convicted of killing three people and, at the time, was the second oldest inmate to be executed in the United States.

Among some of the most notorious killers still awaiting execution in California are:

• Kevin Cooper, an African-American convicted in the 1983 slayings of a Chino Hills couple, their child daughter and a neighbor boy. The conviction has been dogged for decades by claims that police planted evidence. Newsom signed an executive order in February calling for further DNA testing in the case.
• Rodney James Alcala, 75, who was condemned in 2010 for five killings in the late 1970s, including a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl. He later pleaded guilty to two more murders and received a life sentence in prison.
• Randy Kraft, likely California’s most prolific serial killer. Kraft may have killed as many as 65 young men in Oregon, Michigan and California during a 13-year span that ended in 1983. He was convicted of killing 16 men.
• Lawrence Bittaker, who was convicted in the kidnap, torture, rape and murder of five teenage girls plucked off South Bay and San Fernando Valley streets over a five-month period in 1979. Bittaker, who committed the killings with a partner, Roy Norris, is now 78. Norris escaped the death penalty by testifying against Bittaker.

California has the most people on death row, one in four of the nation’s condemned. Twenty-five death row inmates in California have exhausted all their appeals.

Newsom, in his prepared statement, said there were many reasons for blocking efforts to restart California’s death chamber.

Newsom: System ‘a failure’

“Our death penalty system has been — by any measure — a failure,” he said. “It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.

“But most of all,” Newsom said, “the death penalty is absolute. Irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.”

Since 1973, five of the condemned in California were found to be wrongfully convicted and exonerated.

Newsom argued the death penalty is unfair and unequally applied based on race and mental disability.

More than six in 10 people on California’s death row are people of color. Additionally, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 18 of the 25 people executed in the United States in 2018 were mentally ill, brain injured, and/or had an IQ in the intellectually disabled range. Some had chronic serious childhood trauma, neglect, and/or abuse.

Said Newsom, “There’s a reason why, today, three out of four countries around the world have either abolished the death penalty or no longer use it. In America, we execute more human beings than any other democracy on earth. Just in 2017, the United States joined Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Pakistan, China and Egypt as the world’s top executioners.”

3 other states have moratoriums

Democratic governors in three other states — Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania — have put similar moratoriums on the death penalty in recent years. Washington governor and presidential candidate Jay Inslee also declared a hiatus on capital punishment in his state in 2014, but the state’s Supreme Court invalidated Washington’s death penalty altogether last year.

The newly elected Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, also has repeatedly delayed several executions this year as his state tries to reform its lethal injection system, although he has not imposed a moratorium.

Newsom’s decision could elevate the debate over capital punishment to the national political stage as well. President Donald Trump has escalated his Twitter jabs at Newsom in recent months, and has professed his support for the death penalty.

California presidential hopeful and Sen. Kamala Harris also opposes the death penalty, and has already faced questions about her stances on the issue as state attorney general.

During the gubernatorial race last year, Newsom said he hoped to eventually put the death penalty before the voters again, and predicted that they would vote to abolish it.

“We need to have a more sustainable conversation with the public, and I would like to lead that,” he said in an April 2018 interview with the Bay Area News Group. “We haven’t had a governor, with respect, that’s led this conversation. There’s been a lot of timidity on the death penalty.”

As workers dismantled California’s apple-green execution chamber Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s death penalty moratorium was criticized as a slap in the face to voters and praised as a strike for humanity.

Newsom’s executive order, blocking execution for 737 prisoners on death row at San Quentin State Prison, came just as efforts to hasten executions were beginning to pick up steam in the aftermath of a 2016 ballot measure approved by voters. There has not been an execution in the state since 2006.

“We were close to the end — a resumption of justice in California,” said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. “And then he goes and pulls the rug out. People are outraged because there is nothing they can do about it.”

The state constitution gives the governor the ability to delay executions. At a news conference in Sacramento on Wednesday, Newsom said that, based on studies, he believes one out of 25 people on death row is innocent, odds that he could not accept.

“I can’t sign my name to that,” he said. “I can’t be party to that. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night,” Newsom said.

He said California’s capital punishment system discriminates against the poor, racial minorities and the mentally ill. Newsom’s moratorium can be rescinded when he leaves office.

Trump weighs in

The debate Wednesday raged all the way to the White House, where President Donald Trump tweeted, “Defying voters, the Governor of California will halt all death penalty executions of 737 stone cold killers. Friends and families of the always forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled, and neither am I!”

The governor’s action was a gut punch to one father whose son was dismembered by a killer seeking money to get married; to a man whose parents were bound, gagged and thrown off a luxury yacht; and to a dad whose 12-year-old daughter was kidnapped at knifepoint and choked to death.

Steve Herr, whose son, Samuel Herr, 26, of Costa Mesa, was dismembered and scattered by community theater performer Daniel Wozniak in 2010, called Newsom’s action “immoral” and a “cruel joke.” Wozniak also killed another victim in an attempt to obscure his crime.

Edit ‘reopens deep wounds’

“Newsom’s concern for lives of convicted murderers usurps justice for all victims’ families,” Herr said. “Newsom’s edict reopens deep wounds. … Obviously, his personal wishes supersede California law.”

In 2016, voters rejected a measure Newsom supported to repeal the death penalty and approved a competing measure to speed up executions. The governor’s critics lambasted him Wednesday for going against the will of the majority.

Ryan Hawks, whose father, Thomas Hawks, 57, and stepmother, Jackie Hawks, 47, were thrown overboard from their yacht by convicted killer Skylar Deleon in 2004, said Newsom was victimizing taxpayers who funded a dead-end capital punishment process.

“He’s ripping off the families and the taxpayers,” Hawks said. “We were promised justice awarded by the court system that the state never followed through with.”

The day before Newsom announced he was putting California’s death penalty on hold, he invited family members of some death row inmates’ victims to Sacramento to share the news about his difficult decision.

Marc Klaas: ‘Little bit of me died’

“When he told me that, a little bit of me died,” said Marc Klaas, whose daughter Polly was murdered in Petaluma in 1993. “It’s Trumpian, to me, that you can disregard the will of the people and the law of the land and make some kind of executive decision based on your own personal philosophy.”

Klaas, who lives in Sausalito, argued that Newsom was defending “the worst dregs of our society.” Seeing his daughter’s killer, Richard Allen Davis, executed after more than 20 years on death row would mean “his influence would stop, that I’d never have to think about him again,” Klaas said.

The parents of Riverside police Officer Ryan Bonaminio, who was killed during a November 2010 foot chase, said they were sickened by Newsom’s order.

Bonaminio, who had been on the force for four years after serving two Army deployments to Iraq, was murdered by Earl Ellis Green of Rubidoux. The 27-year-old officer had slipped on wet concrete and fell, and Green struck him in the head with a metal pipe.

Green then took the officer’s gun. Bonaminio, who was able to stand, twice told Green: “Don’t do it.” But Green fired, killing the officer.

Joe Bonaminio, 75, and Gerri Bonaminio, 71, denounced the governor’s decision in an interview Wednesday at their Riverside home, festooned with photos of their son and memorials to him.

“I don’t care about all the … bleeding hearts out there because the bleeding hearts out there have not lost somebody close to them,” Joe Bonaminio said. “They haven’t lost a child … to a murderer.”

Bethany Webb, however, lost a sister.

Laura Webb-Elody, 46, was gunned down in a 2011 shooting rampage that left eight dead at a Seal Beach beauty salon. Bethany Webb said the moratorium was one of Newsom’s finest and most humane moments. Webb noted her sister’s killer did not receive the death penalty because of all the mistakes made in his case by law enforcement.

System is ‘broken’

“Most people don’t understand how broken the system is,” said Webb, 57, of Huntington Beach. She said Orange County’s previous district attorney gave the impression to crime victims that you should “just sit in your hatred and what will set you free is taking someone else’s life.”

Webb said of fellow crime victims’ relatives: “I hope they can find a place that we are better than that.”

Erin Runnion has found that place.

Runnion is a child safety advocate and mother of Samantha Runnion, who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered in July 2002. Her killer, Alejandro Avila, has been condemned to death row at San Quentin.

He’ll ‘never hurt another kid again’

Runnion said she has always been opposed to the death penalty, even after her daughter’s murder.

“(Avila’s) sentencing, should it be carried out, is not going to bring me any more peace than knowing he’ll be behind bars and will never hurt another kid again,” she said. “There is nothing that you could do to (Avila) that is comparable to the horror of being kidnapped and murdered at the age of 5.”

Vivian Najera, the aunt of a firefighter killed in the Esperanza fire, said Wednesday she is at peace with sparing the life of the man who set the blaze that raced up the side of San Jacinto Mountains from Banning.

Raymond Lee Oyler was convicted of murdering Daniel Hoover-Najera and four other U.S. Forest Service firefighters on Oct. 26, 2006.

‘God’s place’ to decide

“It’s not my place to decide who dies, it’s God’s place. … I’ve always felt like that,” said Hoover-Najera’s aunt, Vivian Najera.

Najera said Wednesday she “felt comfortable” with Oyler being locked up for life.

The feelings of crime victims are especially crucial because they can sway decisions made by prosecutors, who remain free to seek the death penalty from juries.

In fact, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said his office will conduct business as usual.

“It’s the the law of the land, and I will continue to seek the death penalty when appropriate,” Hestrin said. “The governor cannot change that by fiat.”

‘Takes fight out of victims’

In Orange County, however, newly elected District Attorney Todd Spitzer said, “The governor’s action hurts a lot. (It) takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of people fighting for the death penalty. It takes the fight out of the victims. When victims get frustrated, it makes our job as prosecutors incredibly difficult.”

Reactions from the three Los Angeles County-based members of the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee split along party lines, with Democrats Reggie Jones-Sawyer and Sydney Kamlager-Dove supporting Newsom’s decision and Republican Tom Lackey opposing it.

Jones-Sawyer, the committee’s chairman, said he welcomed the governor’s move.

“Time and again we have seen the death penalty fail to promote justice,” Jones-Sawyer said in a statement, referring to capital punishment as “state-sponsored killing.”

Jones-Sawyer, who represents South Los Angeles, said the billions California spends fighting death-penalty appeals has been “a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

But Lackey, the Public Safety Committee’s vice chairman from Palmdale, said Newsom’s action calls into question his ability to be “a leader for all Californians.”

“It’s disappointing that Governor Newsom would go back on his promise to honor the voters’ choice,” Lackey said on Twitter, adding that Newsom is ignoring not only voters “but murder victims and their families as well.”

“Death row inmates are not ordinary criminals,” Lackey wrote. “They are kidnappers. They are cop killers. They are rapists who murdered their victims. These are the monsters Governor Newsom is protecting.”

Heinous killer awaits natural death instead

Serial killer Lawrence Bittaker might qualify for the monster title.

Stephen Kay, the former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who prosecuted Bittaker, said Wednesday he is still haunted by the case. And he was unhappy with Newsom’s decision.

“Gov. Jerry Brown was against the death penalty, but he didn’t do what Gavin Newsom has done,” Kay said, adding that Brown and other past state leaders instead accepted the will of California voters despite their objections.

Bittaker, who along with accomplice Roy Norris, kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed five teenage girls, most of whom were hitchhiking in South Bay beach towns. The pair used pliers, sledgehammers and ice picks to torture their victims.

Bittaker was condemned to death in 1981, while Norris escaped the death penalty by testifying against his partner in crime. After more than three decades of appeals, Bittaker has turned 78 in prison.

“Bittaker probably hasn’t stopped laughing yet,” Kay said.

Staff writers Brian Rokos, Richard De Atley, Donna Littlejohn, Kevin Modesti and Deepa Bharath and the Bay Area News Group contributed to this report.

One Los Angeles police officer had sex with a drug addict he met on foot patrol. A San Diego County sheriff’s deputy was linked to a Mexican drug cartel. That same deputy sold erectile dysfunction pills illegally to a colleague in a jail parking lot. A Brea police sergeant hawked official shoulder patches he took from the department for $95 apiece.

Such misconduct, once secret under four decades of police confidentiality statutes, now must disclosed under a new transparency law targeting police personnel records. Since late last year, police unions have been fighting fiercely in California’s courthouses to keep the internal misconduct files of their members under wraps, with little success.

But news organizations throughout the state are fighting back, forming an unprecedented collaboration to harvest and share records from every law enforcement agency in California. Putting aside competition, 33 online, radio and print agencies are working together to ensure the public gets all the information possible — and as fast as possible.

Under the new law, the collaboration has made 1,137 public records requests from 675 agencies employing police officers.

“We’re proud to partner with news organizations from throughout California on this very important public-service journalism project,” said Frank Pine, executive editor of the Southern California News Group and Bay Area News Group. “If democracy is to flourish, government agencies must be accountable to the people, and that can’t happen if the people are denied access to public records. This is especially important when it comes to law enforcement agencies, to which we entrust our safety and protection.

“The public has a right to review circumstances or incidents in which complaints or claims of serious misconduct by officers are substantiated or when officers shoot at, seriously injure or kill a member of the public,” Pine said.

Other collaborators are the Los Angeles Times, Southern California Public Radio and Voice of Orange County.

The new law — SB 1421 by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley — took effect Jan. 1, opening all previously hidden internal files involving shootings and the use of deadly force as well as sustained incidents of sexual misconduct and dishonesty.

Theresa Smith has been fighting for that information for nearly a decade, since her 35-year-old son, Caesar Cruz, was shot dead by five Anaheim police officers on Dec. 11, 2009. Police said they saw him reaching for his waistband, as if he were grabbing a gun. But Cruz was unarmed. Officers were operating on a tip that he was carrying a gun and selling meth.

Smith says she knows there often is more to police shootings than the official version.

“There are a lot of untruths being told. (SB) 1421 is so the public can know things,” Smith said, explaining that for the longest time, officers have been able to release the backgrounds of those arrested for crimes without having to disclose their own.

“First they kill them, and then they kill their character,” said Smith, who has become a civil rights advocate. She and her family settled their wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Anaheim for $175,000, but she still believes she hasn’t been told everything.

Perhaps the once-secret files and videos on police shootings will be more forthcoming than the public accounts that always seem to have the same ending.

“It’s the same story, the same story, ‘(officers) feared for their lives,’ ‘he reached for his waistband,’ ” Smith said. “This is the strife I have to see as a mother.”

She added, “If you don’t have anything to hide, why are you fighting so hard?”

Tom Dominguez, president of the union representing Orange County sheriff’s deputies, said the previously secret information can be misused.

“The potential for abuse under this bill will be extraordinary,” Dominguez said. “Not only would the public be given unfettered access to a peace officer’s private information, but they would also be free to provide that information to the media or disseminate it in any way they see fit.”

Many times, he said, the media or criminal defendants set out to “impugn the good character and reputation of individual peace officers.”

Dominguez added that officer-involved shootings undergo much public scrutiny from other government agencies, so no further transparency is needed. Also, there is no evidence that the previously confidential internal affairs process wasn’t working.

Efforts by Dominguez’s group, the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, to block the release of Orange County Sheriff’s Department records were rejected in court.

“In spite of this legislation and public attacks on the profession,” he said, “(deputies) will continue to do their jobs to keep our residents safe.”

Smith isn’t so trusting.

“They hide everything — if they lied on reports, if they had any sexual misconduct. And that’s important to the families” of those shot or killed by law enforcement.

Former Santa Monica police Officer Kevin McInerney just wanted a cuddly puppy from the city animal shelter — so badly that he told others vying for the dog what seemed like a small lie, that he had a daughter.

Ex-Whittier traffic cop Jonathan Herrick coveted a special CHP award — enough to accept credit for a stolen car recovered by a co-worker. It was his colleague’s well-intentioned idea to push Herrick past the finish line.

And former La Habra Officer Brian Torres, once part of the region’s Homeland Security Task Force, wanted to go to the beach with a female colleague who wasn’t his wife. While playing hooky from his job, Torres triggered a missing person investigation amid fears that he had been abducted because of his work with dangerous informants, who turned out to be nonexistent.

All the officers were fired or forced to leave for lying. The early release of once-secret police misconduct records under a new California transparency law reveals some departments come down hard for dishonesty.

Police files unearthed under the law that took effect Jan. 1 — Senate Bill 1421 — also show that officers sometimes tell big, case-affecting lies as well.

In October 2015, former Irvine officer Blake Reutershan was fired after the department reviewed 45 of his reports and found that the majority omitted facts and contained inaccurate statements. Two years earlier, Irvine police terminated officer Michael Wong for the same problem and for disarming the camera in his patrol car at crucial times.

Experts say one of the concerns about police officers who tell even the smallest of lies is that their false statements can be used to discredit their testimony in unrelated court cases. While the badge brings a certain amount of automatic credibility with jurors, it can be easily tarnished.

“The code of silence … that’s really a thing of the past,” said Connecticut attorney Elliot Spector, who represents police officers. “Are there some officers who will take the risk? Of course there are, but when they are caught, it ain’t worth it.”

Misconduct files were released by Santa Monica, Whittier, La Habra and Irvine police departments as well as the Fontana Unified School District in response to public records requests by the Southern California News Group.

The group has teamed up with 38 other news organizations across the state as part of the California Reporting Project, which is working to retrieve police records under SB 1421 in cases of dishonesty, sexual misconduct, officer-involved shootings and other uses of force.

As of mid-April, the collaboration has asked for records — documents, photos, video and audio files — from nearly 700 law enforcement agencies in California, including 327 city police departments and all 58 county sheriff’s agencies.

Of more than 1,000 requests made so far, about 100 responses have included internal files dealing specifically with deceit.

Puppygate

In his mind, McInerney deserved to adopt the homeless puppy. He recovered the dog from a stolen car tracked down by police in October 2013. Then a four-year veteran, McInerney took the dog in his patrol car to the Santa Monica animal shelter, which is managed by the Police Department.

McInerney left word that he wanted to adopt the puppy as soon as possible. He returned off-duty the next morning to find that — because of a mix-up — a woman had been placed first on the adoption list.

According to personnel records, McInerney later identified himself to the woman as the officer who rescued the puppy. He also said his daughter would be disappointed if he didn’t come home with the dog. McInerney, though, was childless.

The woman, whose name was withheld by police, then insisted that he take the dog. However, two other women lower on the list grew suspicious of McInerney and questioned him about the name and age of his daughter as well as where she attended school.

Unsatisfied with his answers, they complained to the shelter that McInerney was abusing his authority to win the dog. One of the complaining women wrote a letter to the mayor. According to personnel records, McInerney continued to lie to the sergeant managing the shelter about having a daughter.

Former Santa Monica Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks, in her termination notice to McInerney, said he had violated one of the most important principles in policing.

“You lied about a material fact concerning police related business in order to provide an immediate benefit to yourself,” Seabrooks wrote.

She added that McInerney’s actions “completely undermine the trust that has been placed in you by the department and by the community you are sworn to serve.”

In an interview with the Southern California News Group, McInerney argued that the department was selectively enforcing its honesty requirement.

“The whole thing is absurd to me … it just seemed like that sergeant (who handled the investigation) had it out for me,” McInerney said. “I don’t disobey orders, and I don’t lie while I’m on-duty, when it actually … counts.”

There is a silver lining for McInerney, one that points out another problem in the police world — the use of tax-paid retirements to cut ties with unwanted officers. McInerney won a disability retirement for post-traumatic stress disorder and now collects an annual pension of $65,782 for about six years of service, according to the public salary and pension database Transparent California.

And the woman who adopted the puppy came to his defense and gave him the dog — aptly named Mulligan.

“No big deal”

In 2014, then-Whittier cop Herrick needed to recover 12 stolen vehicles in one year to qualify for a special pin from the California Highway Patrol. Herrick was off work the October day that his friend, Officer Matt Balzano, went out to retrieve a stolen 2006 Chevrolet Silverado traced to Santa Fe Springs with the aid of LoJack.

Balzano, a 10-year veteran, initially placed his own name on the police form documenting the retrieval. But then he telephoned Herrick and made what appeared to be a generous offer. Balzano asked if he could cross out his own name and replace it with Herrick’s — this would give Herrick the numbers he needed to get the award, called a “10851 pin,” referencing the Vehicle Code section for auto theft.

According to personnel documents, Herrick gave his approval. Balzano made the change after the report was checked by a supervisor. But the plan unraveled when Balzano bragged to a higher-up that he had helped Herrick, a six-year veteran.

Balzano later told investigators that he didn’t believe falsifying the report was a big deal; he was just trying to help out a buddy. Whittier police officials said the lie was far more serious.

“The fact that you did not consider either the falsification of a police report or the knowing misrepresentation to another law enforcement agency in the hopes of receiving an award a ‘big deal’ is extremely disconcerting,” wrote Capt. Aviv Bar to Balzano in a 2015 notice of intent to terminate. “Your deception and gross misconduct is inexcusable and unacceptable.”

Balzano was hired by the Imperial Police Department, near the border with Mexico, within three months of leaving Whittier. Imperial police officials declined comment. Records show Balzano makes $77,653 annually in pay and benefits at Imperial.

Herrick left the Whittier Police Department in 2016. He and Balzano could not be reached for comment.

A tangle of lies

By his own account, La Habra officer Torres lived an exciting life. The 10-year detective was a Homeland Security Task Force member who was recently struck by a watercraft while surfing — potentially by a lookout for drug runners. He had spent two days in the hospital and, shortly after, was contacted by a longtime confidential informant with a major tip about drugs from Mexico.

Or so the story goes.

Then his wife in 2014 reported him missing to the Azusa Police Department. She and co-workers were afraid because of the surfing accident. Maybe that was an attempted hit, they thought. Maybe he had gone to meet the tipster without any backup, according to his personnel file.

Then Torres’ task force teammates determined that he had not spent any recent days in the hospital. There was no tipster or major drug operation. Records show Torres finally called in and said he had spent a planned day at the beach with a date.

The woman, another task force member, said she believed Torres was getting a divorce. Torres was suspended. When he turned in his police dog, others noticed it appeared underweight and neglected.

As Whittier police dug deeper into Torres’ background, they uncovered nine affidavits in his desk, used to persuade judges to sign search warrants. All misstated his training and experience, records say.

Co-workers told internal investigators that he bragged about a drunken argument with Gov. Jerry Brown — so fierce he had to be escorted away by a CHP security detail. He said his family was independently wealthy and that he had worked for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. None was true.

In a meeting with investigators, Torres said he often signs affidavits prepared by other officers. He said this was common practice. Asked why, Torres said police departments are money hungry and pressure officers to conduct seizures.

Torres also conceded that he lied to make himself look better to co-workers.

“Detective Torres is unabashed in his use of fabrication, deceit and lies,” Capt. George Johnstone wrote in a memo recommending termination. “Torres has violated the confidence and trust placed in him as a law enforcement officer to the extent it cannot be restored.”

Torres could not be reached for comment. It is unclear whether his falsified search warrant affidavits were turned over to defense attorneys as exculpatory evidence.

White lie

Former Fontana Unified School District police Officer Richard Zbinden was trying to cut a kid a break after confiscating marijuana from him in January 2014. Zbinden thought the boy was otherwise a good kid with hopes of joining the military. So he wrote the police report without mentioning the youth.

Zbinden’s “good deed” won him a 20-day suspension without pay from his $65,000-a-year job.

“The employee neglected his duty and did not represent Fontana Unified School District or the school police department in a positive light,” wrote Tika Dave-Harris, director of classified human resources at the district.

Zbinden, a former Pomona police officer for three years, said in his interview with the district: “I was trying to steer him away from marijuana … so he could follow his dream to be in the Air Force and to become somebody.”

Misstated facts

While some lies are small, others are big and can be very damaging.

In Orange County in 2015, prosecutors at the District Attorney’s Office grew suspicious of police reports written by Irvine Officer Blake Reutershan. The police department later reviewed 45 of Reutershan’s reports dating back to 2012 and found major problems.

For instance, Reutershan attributed statements to suspects who never made them. In one case, he allegedly wrote that a suspect told him she was going to sell Oxycodone to clients for $10 a pill. Recordings made by police showed she never said that.

In another case in 2014, Reutershan searched a hotel room without getting consent from the woman staying there. He wrote falsely in his report that she had allowed him to look around.

Five days before he received his termination notice on Oct. 27, 2015, Reutershan was arrested in Orange County for driving under the influence. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge a year later. He did not appear to be charged for falsifying dozens of police reports.

In 2013, the city sent a termination notice to officer Michael Wong for deception and omitting material facts from police reports. He also was suspected of disconnecting his mobile video system or conducting DUI tests outside the view of the camera, records say.

Wong told investigators he would never leave out information intentionally from a report and must have forgotten.

Reutershan and Wong could not be reached for comment.

The ink on Paul Wilson’s right arm tells a story of love and loss, of death and redemption.

There’s a conch shell for Seal Beach, where his wife of 26 years, Christy, and seven others were shot to death by a deranged acquaintance angry over child custody issues. There’s a palm tree for Christy’s favorite Palm Desert restaurant. A fallen hourglass marks the day the bullets flew on Oct. 12, 2011, with eight birds ascending. Also rising up Wilson’s muscular forearm is a Phoenix taking flight.

If his body is a bittersweet canvas for all that he honors, Wilson’s eyes are a reflection of a different sort. Of hurt and anger.

In past years, Wilson’s icy stare was reserved for the man who killed his wife, Scott Dekraai, and the attorney assigned to save him from death row, Scott Sanders. One was a cold-blooded killer. The other, he thought, tortured the victims’ families by needlessly prolonging a slam-dunk case.

Wilson spent a lot of time sitting behind Sanders and Dekraai in court, staring lasers into the back of their heads.

Disdain evolves into respect

But those long court days, spanning four years, became a road to Damascus for Wilson. He watched Sanders prove that police and prosecutors tried to cheat in the Dekraai case — as well as other proceedings — by misusing jailhouse informants to solicit confessions.

Slowly, the hatred Wilson felt for Sanders became a grudging respect and, finally, a rare friendship.  And that’s when Wilson’s anger turned to then-District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and, eventually, new D.A. Todd Spitzer, who both used him, he says, to boost their public images.

“How stupid was I?” says Wilson, who believes things will be different with Sanders.

“Scott wants to fight for justice, not just for a win,” says Wilson, who recognizes the strange nature of their relationship. “This is the guy who defended the guy who killed my wife.”

Remembers Sanders: “Nobody was more furious than he was. He said my children should be ashamed of me … (but) he has been through the depths of pain which few of us can imagine.”

Join forces for Innocence Project

Now, no one could be prouder of Sanders than Wilson.

The men have joined forces in the New York-based Innocence Project’s national campaign against the unregulated use of jailhouse informants. The group, which uses DNA and other evidence to free the wrongly convicted, is taking its campaign from state to state.

Sanders, 52, and Wilson, 54, are center stage in the promotion to alert the country that bad snitches can unravel a criminal case. Informant problems played a part in one-fifth of the cases overturned with help from the Innocence Project.

What Sanders, an assistant public defender, brings to the table is battle-tested gravitas from the way he persuaded a judge to boot the entire Orange County District Attorney’s Office from the Dekraai case in 2015. Sanders prevailed again two years later by getting the same judge to give the confessed mass killer — the worst in Orange County history — life in prison instead of the death penalty.

Wilson, an import/exporter from Rossmoor, has the authenticity of being a crime victim who is not afraid to speak his mind, or to change it.

‘Unlikely pairing’

“It’s that unlikely pairing — they are from two different places, but they want the right thing to be done,” said Michelle Feldman, state campaigns director for the Innocence Project. “Jailhouse informants don’t just hurt the defendants, but victims really get hurt when things aren’t handled properly in trial.”

Besides coming from opposite ends of the crime spectrum, Sanders and Wilson are polar opposites in their appearance as well. Wilson’s hair is neatly gelled, his physique molded by days in the gym. Sanders is more rumpled and professorial. He is methodical, while Wilson barrels through issues at 100 mph.

Both men, Feldman says, are engaging.

“They almost made me cry several times. They found friendship beyond the typical labels,” she says. “In the legal system, people are in their silos. Prosecutors versus defendant, victims versus defendant, and justice is lost.”

Sanders said it’s the first time that a victim has reached out to him, motivating him to keep fighting for the rights of defendants.

“He called me after (Dekraai’s) sentencing. He said what do we do so they don’t get away with it,” recalls Sanders. “We’ll see where it goes. I’m energized now.”

Perceptions change

During the Dekraai trial, Wilson remembers prosecutors blaming Sanders for the long delays, for using a “smoke-and-mirrors” defense that would surely go nowhere. Wilson said he believed it, until he started to read all the legal briefs in the case. Then, sheriff’s deputy after sheriff’s deputy, prosecutor after prosecutor, struggled on the witness stand when asked about their use of informants.

Wilson’s anger turned to the authorities he felt had lied to him, those who botched the case. He started attending news conferences presented by prosecutors, standing in the back and staring wordlessly, his silence speaking volumes.

Also showing up at these news conferences was then-D.A. candidate and county Supervisor Spitzer, who persuaded Wilson to join him on the campaign trail. Spitzer eventually unseated Rackauckas in November 2018.

“Todd and I formed a bond. … He championed me expressing myself,” Wilson remembers. “When he won, he said, ‘We did this for Christy.’ That destroys me.”

Wilson said Spitzer coached him on how to handle the media, where to sit in the courtroom, when to speak. Spitzer choreographed Wilson’s appearances and preread his speeches, he says. Wilson campaigned against Rackauckas with the ferocity of an avenging angel.

‘Used me like a pawn’

Now, Wilson again feels used, this time by Spitzer, who, instead of immediately cleaning house, kept or promoted three prosecutors involved in the informant scandal.

Dan Wagner, former head of homicide, had been demoted by Rackauckas in his last days to make it more difficult for him to be fired. Spitzer returned Wagner back to his previous supervisor status, but moved him to a less elite job. Beth Costello, who dropped a case rather than abide by a judge’s orders to identify a jailhouse informant, was promoted. And Senior Assistant District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh, who as Rackauckas’ mouthpiece called the informant crisis “baloney,” was retained.

“The night he took his oath, it breaks my heart, (Todd) told me he loved me, knowing he was going to screw me,” Wilson says. “He pulled the wool over my eyes and that doesn’t happen too often, but I was very vulnerable.

“I’m mad at Todd Spitzer, but I’m also hurt by Todd Spitzer. This is a man who came to me at the lowest point in my life and he befriended me and I trusted him. And he used me like a pawn.”

Adds Wilson: “I had the biggest victims’ voice at the time in Orange County and Todd became my friend for false reasons.”

Spitzer: Everyone’s frustrated

Spitzer says he understands Wilson’s frustration. But he insists he’s bound by labor regulations to proceed as he has. Spitzer noted the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a civil rights investigation and he has started his own internal inquiry to determine how to proceed.

“The fact that we are in this situation is frustrating. I am frustrated. Mr. Wilson is frustrated. Crime victims and their families across Orange County are frustrated,” Spitzer said.

“I would hope that Mr. Wilson and crime victims across Orange County would understand that, as frustrating as it is, these investigations need to be concluded. We need to find out what happened, why, and who is responsible. And we must do it in a way that is thorough and fair to ensure any potential personnel actions can withstand any legal challenges.”

Spitzer said Costello and Baytieh are on a list of Orange County prosecutors that federal investigators want to interview.

“I will be compelling them to be interviewed, as all employees,” Spitzer said. “I care deeply about Mr. Wilson and his family. The pain they have endured and continue to endure is unimaginable.”

Prosecutors defend actions

Baytieh, in a written statement, said he was picked under Rackauckas to conduct workshops and participate in forums on the informant issue because of his extensive experience. He said he focused on “our responsibility to follow the law in an ethical manner, and the steps we have taken and continue to take to provide better training to prosecutors and peace officers to ensure that the mistakes of the past are corrected and not repeated.”

For his part, Wagner said, “I understand the frustration with the way the (Dekraai) case turned out, but my steps throughout were taken in good faith to comply with the law.”

And Costello said, “The Huntington Beach Police Department refused to disclose the names of their confidential informants and as a result I was legally required to dismiss the case. I fulfilled my legal obligation as a prosecutor, which is to follow the law.”

Wilson and Sanders aren’t buying the explanations.

“I have to find the justice in injustice,” says Wilson, who recently remarried. “The hope is that by me bringing light to this … I want to keep it from happening to anybody else.”

Says Sanders: “I’m still willing and wanting to push this stuff. I want to make sure the indigent get a fair trial.”

Friendship is genuine

Besides sharing a sense of justice, Wilson and Sanders often share a deep dish at a Chicago pizza joint near Sanders’ home. In deference to Sanders, a Chicago native, Wilson even roots for the Bears. They’ve been to each other’s homes. They know each other’s kids. Sanders was invited, but couldn’t attend, Wilson’s November wedding in Cabo San Lucas.

The two men even talk every day.

“Yeah, I know the two coffee shops you can drive to if you can’t find Scott at home,” Wilson says.

Will it last?

“I get people are going to say, ‘Sanders has an agenda,’ ” Wilson says. “Well, so does Paul Wilson, and that’s to expose the corruption I’ve experienced.”

Police will have a tougher time justifying the use of deadly force under a new bill expected to clear the state Assembly that represents a rare compromise between reformers and law enforcement groups.

The proposed law, AB 392, would impose a stricter standard for using deadly force, but some say not as strict as originally written. Currently, officers involved in fatal shootings and other force must show their response was “reasonable” to protect their lives or the lives of others. The amended proposal says the force must be “necessary,” but doesn’t define what “necessary” is.

Also missing from the original version of the bill is a requirement that officers first use deescalation methods, such as negotiation and less-than-lethal force.

The bill, authored by Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, is now tied with a separate proposal to increase police training.

Backing the amended bill is Theresa Smith, whose son, Caesar Cruz, was killed in 2009 in a barrage of bullets from Anaheim officers who received a confidential tip that an armed parolee was driving in a Walmart parking lot. Cruz was unarmed and wearing his seat belt when police officers riddled the car with gunfire, saying he appeared to have reached for his waistband.

“I’ve been fighting the last 10 years to make these changes,” Smith said. “It’s a change to hold them accountable and have them stop killing people unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Smith says the amended bill — the result of opposition to the original version from law enforcement groups — is better than no bill at all.

“I don’t know that it does the job, but it’s a step in a forward direction,” Smith says. “It’s stronger than anyone else has ever had. It’s not a fix all, but it’s a step.”

The Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs and other law enforcement groups are neutral on the amended bill, which almost ensures its passage. Tom Dominguez, president of the Orange County union, said the bill “caused law enforcement to look itself in the mirror and say, ‘We’ve got to address it.’ “

He added that the training component is a key part of the package.

“There’s a price tag associated with training, and the first thing to be cut from budgets is training. And that’s the worst thing to be cut.”

In an official statement accompanying the bill, its author says police kill more people in California than in any other state, with a rate 37 percent higher than the national per capita. In 2017, police killed 172 people in California, only half of whom had guns, the statement said.

Five of the 15 police departments with the highest per capita rate of officer-involved deaths in the nation are in California: Bakersfield, Stockton, Long Beach, Santa Ana and San Bernardino, according to the statement.

Data compiled by the Washington Post indicates that Long Beach had 13 fatal shootings from 2015 to 2018, with nine of the dead armed; San Bernardino had 10 in that same period, with six armed; and Santa Ana had 10 deadly shootings, with two armed.

“These tragedies disproportionately impact communities of color as California police kill unarmed young black and Latino men at significantly higher rates than they do white men,” said Weber’s statement. Of the 33 killed in Long Beach, San Bernardino and Santa Ana during that period, eight were white.

The bill must be voted on by Friday in the Assembly or it will die. Subsequent passage in the state Senate is expected.

A former state drug agent overseeing Southern California operations was fired after having sex with a female subordinate and blackmailing her into covering it up, according to recently unsealed personnel records.

William Telish, former director of a Los Angeles-based regional task force, had an affair with a secretary and then threatened to send nude photos of the woman to her son after she tried to tell a supervisor, said termination records obtained from the state Department of Justice under a new police transparency law.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra released the records after his department was sued by the First Amendment Coalition and Bay Area news radio station KQED.

In 2010, Telish was fired for dishonesty and discourteous treatment from his latest job as special-agent-in-charge of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement office in Riverside, the largest regional office in California. When he worked in Los Angeles, Telish supervised more than 95 local, state and federal workers in the operation against drug traffickers.

Agent calls firing a ‘sham’

Telish appealed his termination, calling the personnel investigation a “sham” and alleging that phone recordings surreptitiously made during the probe violated his civil rights.

The firing, however, was upheld by appellate court justices. The name of the woman, Linda Drylie, was redacted from state records, but appeared in lawsuits she filed against Telish and the Department of Justice. Her suits were privately settled, records show.

Telish and Drylie did not respond to phone messages seeking comment Tuesday.

The state termination notice says Telish and Drylie began the affair in 2006 while at a work-related conference for the Los Angeles lnteragency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force. Telish marked the relationship by taking nude photos of Drylie and making a sex tape with her.

At the time of the affair, Telish was being sued by another employee for sexual harassment.

In her lawsuit, Drylie alleged Telish began dating her “to satisfy his sexual, sadistic, torturous and narcissistic needs.”

Denied the affair

State records say he and Drylie kissed after hours in the office and had sex in a state-owned vehicle. Telish denied the affair when asked about it by another official.

“In other words, you lied. Thus, you intentionally tried to conceal from management that there was anything inappropriate going on between the two of you,” stated his termination notice.

To further the lie, records say, Telish forced Drylie to deny the affair to the deputy director of the task force. Telish threatened to post the photos and video of Drylie on social media if she didn’t recant her earlier acknowledgement of the affair, the documents say. He also threatened suicide, her lawsuit says.

Telish ended the affair when Drylie left the task force, but he demanded that she email him photos of her genitals, so he could determine if she was having sex with others, the state investigation found.

Victim hired at Placentia PD

Drylie obtained a job with the Placentia Police Department and Telish was sent in 2009 to head the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement office in Riverside. The couple resumed the affair, but Drylie accused Telish of assault after he held her down with one hand and used the other hand to look through her cellphone messages to determine if she was dating other men.

Drylie reported the alleged assault to Placentia’s police chief, James Anderson, after Telish called her at work, reminding her that he still had the video and photos, records said. The chief complained to the state Department of Justice, which initiated an investigation. As part of the probe, Drylie started recording her phone conversations with Telish.

In the recordings, Telish used racial epithets to describe a co-worker and wondered aloud about the physical attributes of two male and female task force candidates, records say.

He also allegedly told Drylie to call him “Daddy” and said falsely that he had a 70-year-old informant in the Department of Justice headquarters who gave him information in exchange for sexual favors.

‘Extreme and irreparable discredit’

The termination notice said, “Despite the fact that you and Ms. (Drylie) had an ongoing personal relationship, such comments made to an employee of an allied agency … are unacceptable and cause extreme and irreparable discredit to the department.”

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation into Telish for allegedly controlling a witness, but declined to file charges because there was not enough evidence.

The Southern California News Group and news organizations across California have been working together since January to collect once-secret law enforcement records under SB 1421 in cases of dishonesty, sexual misconduct, officer-involved shootings and other uses of force.