11/01/10

WHAT CALIFORNIA VOTERS NEED TO KNOW

To allow Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley to occupy

the California State Attorney General’s office would be like
sending the Fox, himself, to live in the hen-house. A person of
integrity is needed in this office and Steve Cooley has none.

In 1994, when he was in charge of the North Valley District

Attorney’s office, Steve Cooley presided over a series of
cynical, illegal activities designed to benefit a violent
criminal at the expense of his seriously injured victim.

This included appointing a so-called “Special Prosecutor,” who

engineered the acceptance of a felony plea-agreement in the
[misdemeanor] Municipal Court, and then had the case transferred
to [felony] Superior Court for sentencing some time later. These
two courts were separate at the time and this was illegal!

This maneuver provided the judge with what in law is called

“plausible deniability.” It enabled her to sentence the criminal
as if he’d pled guilty to three misdemeanors, instead of to
three serious and violent felonies.

Two of these serious felonies were not subject to plea

bargaining. These were serious violent felonies that carried
mandatory time in state prison, based on the evidence. (Please
see addendum at end of article for penal code charges in this
case.)

Yet this particular criminal, despite an extensive prior history

of violence against women, received a sentence of county jail
time, probation and forty days in rehab for an alleged substance
abuse problem which he did not have at the time. THIS WAS A
VIOLATION OF STATE LAW AND A CRIME AGAINST THE VICTIM, AS WELL
AS A CRIME AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

This sham was embellished with exquisite detail, such as the

“Special Prosecutor” telling the victim to: “Stay home; it’s
only a routine hearing,” when the illegal plea was taken.

The D.A.'s office did not send for the hospital records until
the day of sentencing – lying to the victim and the court,
claiming to have no idea why they hadn’t yet been received.

1
Cooley's office lied about the time that the criminal was
leaving for the country club style, rehab-resort in Arizona for
his bogus ‘treatment,” in an unsuccessful effort to frustrate
the victim’s efforts to effect the service of a lawsuit.

Assistant D.A. Cooley's office refused to do anything to

restrain the perpetrator, even after he made repeated death
threats against the victim, persisted in harassing her on the
phone, and inspired male friends to assault her on the street.

This office also refused to do anything to help the crime victim

obtain any of the court-ordered restitution from the criminal –
even going so far as to tell her, contemptuously, to go get
S.S.I. and stop bothering them.

The judge and the “Special Prosecutor” mocked her injuries, in

the absence of the medical documentation which the prosecutor,
himself, had deliberately failed to obtain. When these records
were finally located a couple of years later, it was discovered
that there were risks for retinal detachment and blindness about
which no one had bothered to tell the victim.

It turned out that the injuries were more serious in several

ways than was known at first, involving serious concussion,
permanent eye-damage, partial sight-loss, brain damage and
balance impairment.

Sixteen years later, the crime victim still struggles with the
effects of these injuries, is unable to work independently,
drive or go anywhere alone. The criminal has a new life in
another state, and Steve Cooley is running for State Attorney
General.

WHY SHOULD VOTERS CARE?

At this point, the skeptical voter might well wonder why,

indeed, would the district attorney’s office treat criminals and
victims as if their roles were reversed?

One can only surmise that Steve Cooley may have been following
the example set by his boss, then District Attorney Gil
Garcetti, who had been infamously featured in Fortune Magazine,
for his shameless and repeated acceptance of what looked and
smelled like bribes.

That possibility is still the only one that holds up and makes
sense. The more so as the criminal’s wealthy parents were only

2
too willing to rush up from Orange County to rescue him and lie
for him, even though he was a grown man.

Finally, during the months of rehabilitation and searching for

answers, the victim was put in touch with a woman who had worked
in the domestic violence unit of the district attorney’s office,
both before and after major changes had been made under Gil
Garcetti.

Her information was astonishing. Los Angeles is the only county

in all of California, which both collects and administers, with
no state oversight, its own restitution fund – the monies
collected from batterers and other criminals which are supposed
to be used for the medical care and rehabilitation of their
victims.

At one time, the head administrator had been a caring woman and
they had all done their best to deliver services to battered
women – transportation, court accompaniment, counseling,
restitution, etc.

Then the administrator who cared was replaced by a man who was
an accountant, not a social worker. He didn’t care about the
women at all and the services stopped. Those workers who tried
to continue helping the women who so desperately needed it, were
harassed and eventually fired.

No one knew any more what happened to the money collected from
batterers, but it wasn’t reaching the women for whom it was
intended. THERE WAS NO OVERSIGHT!

Need I go on? Only one thing – go back to the early 1990’s, and
back issues of the L.A. Times. Look for front page articles on
the missing $25,000,000.00 collected for child support in L.A.
County, and never delivered to the spouses and children
intended. It just disappeared.

Steve Cooley isn’t responsible for all of the corruption in the

county. Some of it preceded him. But he is responsible for
fitting right in with it, doing nothing to change it, and
probably benefiting from it, himself.

When the crime victim went to him for help in dealing with the
judge and court appearances, Steve Cooley laughed scornfully,
and said that the judge wouldn’t like to see photos and written
evidence of the perpetrator’s wrongdoing – it would make her
angry –not at the criminal, but at the victim for bringing it

3
up. With that observation, he offered to take the box of growing
evidence off her hands, with a laugh, “for safekeeping.”

In all, the victim was treated as if she had been the criminal.
The judge, the “Special Prosecutor,” other prosecutors in the
same office run by Cooley, Steve Cooley himself, and a so-called
“advocate” who showed up at some point – were all rude, abrupt
and verbally abusive. They were engaging in the same kind of
behavior as the batterer, minus the physical violence.

Other battered women have also reported being treated in a

similar manner. Victims of violence are in no condition to fight
for their rights, so they are easy to victimize a second time.

None of this behavior makes sense, except as a cover-up for deep

corruption. Judge and possible district attorney “unmonitored
slush-funds,” were subjects of scandal involving disappeared
child-support years ago. Is it too much to suppose that there
might be a domestic violence slush-fund, as well?

Steve Cooley talks a big story about law and order, but then he
gives illegal deals to those criminals who can afford to pay for
them. Now he wants power over the whole state, not just the
corruption in Los Angeles County.

Think about it. Is Steve Cooley the kind of man you want to run
the state’s legal apparatus? Please.

4
 ADDENDUM

People V. Jacobs

Case No. PAO17816

Count I

P.C. 273.5. (a) Any person who willfully inflicts upon a person
who is his or her spouse, former spouse, cohabitant, former
cohabitant, or the mother or father of his or her child,
corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition, is guilty of
a felony,...

Count II

P. C. 245. (a) (1) Any person who commits an assault upon the
person of another with a deadly weapon or instrument other than
a firearm or by any means of force likely to produce great
bodily injury shall be punished by imprisonment...

P. C. 1192.7.
(2) Plea bargaining in any case in which the indictment or
information charges any serious felony, is prohibited,...

(c) As used in this section, "serious felony" means any of

the following: (23) any felony in which the defendant
personally used a dangerous or deadly weapon;...

Count III

P. C. 243. (d) When a battery is committed against any person

and serious bodily injury is inflicted on the person, the
battery is punishable by imprisonment...

P. C. 1192.7.
(2) Plea bargaining in any case in which the indictment or
information charges any serious felony, is prohibited,...

(c) As used in this section, "serious felony" means any of

the following: (8) any felony in which the defendant personally
inflicts great bodily injury on any person,...