IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF MONTEREY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE CASE NO. $S101828A OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff, vs (CONFIDENTIAL RECORD) Pages 1,202-1,243 JOSEPH JOHN CUBBAGE, Defendant , REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS MAY 31, 2013 BEFORE THE HONORABLE JULIE R. CULVER, JUDGE APPEARANCES FOR THE DEFENDANT: JAMES S. EGAR, Public Defender of ‘the County’ of Monterey BY: JEREMY C. DZUBAY Deputy Public Defender REPORTED BY: HELYN ANGELA JOHNSON, C.S.R. NO, 10770 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER MONTEREY COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT ¢ -O PY1202 MAY 31, 2013 - MORNING SESSION (Whereupon, the following proceedings were held in closed court, in the presence of the Court and Defense Counsel. The District Attorney was excluded from these proceedings. This confidential record constitutes pages 1,202 through 1,240. THE COURT: And Mr. Cubbage, if you'd like to step forward. THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Good morning, Your Honor THE COURT: Good morning. And the record will reflect that the courtroom has been cleared. The only people who remain here are now Mr. Cubbage and Mr. Dzubay, as well as the court staff. And the prosecuting attorney is not present. This is a closed hearing. The Court will also order, at the end of this hearing, that the record, the transcript of this hearing be sealed. In case I forget, I'm making the order now And so Mr. Cubbage, what you say to me, at this point will be in confidence. You can speak freely. Do you understand that? THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Yes, Your Honor THE COURT: Okay. And it's my understanding that you're requesting that your attorney, Mr. Dzubay, be relieved? THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Yes, ma'am THE COURT: And what is it that -- why is it that you are asking Mr. Dzubay be relieved? THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Um -- first, Your Honor, if you don't mind, I would like to inform you that I'm not astute in the area of law. I'm going to my best here today, so I1203 appreciate your patience with me. And I'11 do my best to present my case to support my request. And the first goal would be conflict of interest. And the second one would be ineffective counse THE COURT: Okay. So do you want to provide me with information about these two issues, in that order, then? Do you want to talk about the conflict of interest? THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: I would like to do that, Your Honor. And at the same time -- um -- if at all possible, in order to help me to support my request, Mr. Dzubay has pertinent information regarding these issues directly at hand, and I would like to get his sworn testimony, if that's at all possible, Your Honor. THE COURT: So at this time, I'm asking information from you -- THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Okay THE COURT: -- about what you would like to provide the Court -- THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Yes, ma'am THE COURT: -- as far as these claims. And I'm not going to require that you be sworn in this matter, nor am I going to require that your attorney, Mr. Dzubay, be sworn Mr. Dzubay is an officer of the court, and the -- as an officer of the court, the Court must rely that the information that he provides to the Court is true and accurate. I'm not aware of any misrepresentation that he has made to the Court, and, as I say, he is an officer of the court and is due respect as a result of his position in this matter. So if you'd like to1204 provide the information that you have to the Court, I'm very happy to listen to that THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Yes, ma'am. What would you like me to start with, number one or number two? THE COURT: This is your hearing, so you can approach it however you feel most comfortable. THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Okay. I would like to start by telling the Court that Mr. Dzubay, prior to the restitution hearing, and is where my issues actually go back, and Mr. Dzubay was one of my lawyers. I was first given Heather Rogers, on September 22, 2010; then, I was given "Lisa" Navarro, January of 2011; then, I was given Jeremy Dzubay, August 1st of 2011; and then, I was given Lisa Navarro, January of 2012. And then, we moved on to the restitution hearing, where I believe Mr. Dzubay was appointed in, I believe, January of 2013. And in terms of the information that I believe Mr. Dzubay has within him and has stated to courts prior to this one, I believe he is -- he has acknowledged that the statements I'm about to make are true both in Judge Butler's courtroom, as well as Judge Russell Scott's courtroom. And -- so going back, before I -- when I first received Jeremy Dzubay, I had informed him that I had serious concerns about my case, because I had Lisa Navarro as my lawyer, and she was actually making statements to the effect of: They were at least three lawyers short in their office. She had 150 other cases. They didn't have the time, the money, or the resources to give my case what it deserved. It actually took -- excuse me -- didn't have the time, money, or resources to give -- to1205 sup -- to provide the -- what my case would need if it was to be taken to trial, and that I might want to consider allowing her to -- to negotiate a plea deal with the Monterey County Public Defender's Office. I've complained to Mr. Dzubay that, prior to his arrival, I could barely get meetings with my lawyer, and, most often, those meetings were just minutes -- three minutes, two minutes, five minutes -- before the court hearing, at which time she was in the court running around with a stack this tall (indicating) and going from seat to seat to seat. And I wasn't -- it's my opinion that -- it's my opinion that things could have been -- there could have been a closer form of communication between my lawyer and I I -- um -- I believe that I may have expressed to -- I can't recall for sure, but I believe I expressed to Mr. Dzubay that Ms. Navarro was actually calling my dad, or had called my dad, by the name of Mr. Shapiro, when his name is Cubbage Johnnie Cubbage, So I got Jeremy. And it was about nine months after my case was appointed to the Monterey County Public Defender's Office that an investigator was appointed to my case And I must say that at the time when I received Mr. Dzubay along with his investigator, Nelson Rodriguez, it was a huge breath of fresh air, I felt, at that point, I was being in a position where I had no choice but to make an involuntary plea based on the statements that were made to me by my previous lawyer, as well as the -- my ability to have the time that felt would have been required to communicate with my lawyer about the current standing in my case, what had been doneSoaeroaanron 1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1206 leading up to my case, and the strategy that was going to be utilized in defending my case So I did get Jeremy, and a lot of work was done. And then, I had let Mr. Dzubay know that I was going to trial on this matter, that the statements and the accusations that were made against me were not true, and that I wanted a jury to be able to see the facts and to hear the testimony of all of the witnesses involved in this matter. I recall Mr. Dzubay telling me that he looked forward to taking my case to trial, and -- though he did not give me statistics or percentages about my chances of winning at trial the way that my previous lawyer actually had, Lisa Navarro. And in two separate meetings, she had actually called her boss into the meeting, Mr. Jim Egar where they had, for lack of a better word, they really made me feel pressured to allow them to negotiate a deal with the Monterey County District Attorney's Office And at one point in time, I asked Mr. Egar, in the meeting that actually took place on -- I believe it was Valentine's Day 2012 -- um -- if you give me one moment, Your Honor? THE COURT: Sure. THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Yes, it was. It was February 14, 2012. I met with Lisa Navarro and James Egar, as well as Nelson Rodriguez, the investigator. We met in the library of the Monterey County Public Defender's Office. And -- um -- at that meeting is where I was in a position where I felt like I was under extreme pressure, so much so that I actually became unprofessional, and I told Mr. Egar that when he was done with1207 law, he always had a -- a career in time-share salesman; that he was trying to convince me into making an emotional buy, and that I wasn't prepared. Your Honor, I suffer from PTSD, and not to -- not as an excuse, but when I'm in environments of extreme stress -- um - sometimes I -- I have difficulties. I become very stressed can't breathe, et cetera. I became -- I -- I got into this state on that day, and I asked Mr. Egar why he would -- would actually give me a percentage, and why he thought -- of my chances of winning, and what would make him make that statement And he actually stated that it was based on what he knew of my case, talking to the people involved. And I remember asking Mr. Egar, "Well, I'd like you to tell me the circumstances of my case and name three people in it. Just three people. You can name two." Mr. Egar failed. And that's when I made the statement to him that he should become a time-share salesman. And I do acknowledge that that wasn't professional of me to do but I did. So moving forward, I was eager to go to trial with Mr. Dzubay. I felt confident, at that time, with him as my counsel, and I felt confident that he had my best interests at heart and was working hard. I really felt that. And when we had communicated, I was ready to go to trial, and these deals kept coming at me, Well, you know, the DA -- (mumbling) - deal. Well, ultimately, Jeremy was taken away from my case, and I was given back to Ms. Navarro So after a continual line of communication with Ns. Navarro about plea deals, plea deals, plea deals, I kept1208 refusing, and one day -- and I believe it was the date of March 18th of 2012, while in Department 7 -- um -- I was in Department 7 with Judge Maldonado. And I'11 make the circumstance of that very brief. I was standing in line enrolling in my community college, and my adult niece walked in the door, who is the child of my sister, and she's named in the restraining order. My niece gave me a hug and a kiss, told me she loved me, and I reciprocated, told her I loved her. That was a mistake. I should have turned and ran. I did not. My sister had me arrested about 30 minutes later on campus. So now I found myself in front of Judge Maldonado on the 14th of February, and it was that time that Ms. Navarro, I recall her being approached by Jim Davis, a former prosecutor with the Monterey County District Attorney's Office. And he was present with my sister, Mariah Cubbage Shapiro -- Shapiro Cubbage. Her maiden name is Cubbage. And they proposed a deal to me, by where my sister, at this point, was already the conservatorship of my father. There was a conservatorship hearing, simultaneously, while I was dealing with this issue at hand, this case. So I tried to go for the conservatorship and win but I had no chance and I lost. So my sister, at this point made the decision who sees my father and who does not, no matter what happens in this case. Jim Davis approached Ms. Navarro and -- in Courtroom 7 -- Department 7 -- I'm sorry -- on March the 15th, 2012, and informed Ms. Navarro that if I had agreed to make a plea deal on one of these counts, that my sister would allow me to see my father one time per month, at no expense to the family estate. So I had a very serious decision to make,1209 because not only were they offering me an opportunity to see my dad before he died, but they were also telling me that if I took this deal, that this restraining order situation that had taken place when I was enrolling in school, that that would be dismissed; that if I did not take this deal, that I could be sitting in the Monterey County Jail until my case went to trial and I would be facing an additional period of time on a separate charge, this charge being a violation of a restraining order So those issues combined with the statements that Ms. Lisa Navarro had made to me throughout the course of roughly 2 years, roughly, I felt like I had no choice but to take this deal, and -- so I agreed We moved forward -- we moved forward, and it was May the fourth that -- of 2012, in Judge Russell Scott's department that I pleaded no contest to one charge of 368(d), non-caregiver theft of an elder of over $950. That was the deal that was - that was discussed in Courtroom 7, Mr. Maldonado's, on -- um -- March the 15th. So at sentencing, there was no mention of the agreement, and the agreement was actually three years felony probation -- um -- one year in county jail, which I would do six months, and I would be able to see my dad. Most importantly, would be able to see my dad. There was no mention of this dea at sentencing. And while at sentencing, I -- I don't know if I call it a mistake. I don't know what it is, but I felt the need to speak out to Mr. Honorable Judge Scott. And I said, Your Honor, I said, I'm asking you to take a look at this police report. I was charged with kidnapping my dad, using a power of attorney, selling more than $400,000 in stocks, and withdrawing1210 the money out of the bank, when the forensic financial expert had already testified that that was not the case: I didn't sel the stocks. I didn't withdraw the money. And the police reports showed my mother actually kicked my father out of the house. My mother hired a lawyer, Christian Scott and Sam Lavorato, and filed for divorce in the Monterey County courts Yet, I believe it was roughly eight months later that my sister came forward with her husband, Deputy Shapiro, and they filed a missing person's report and claimed that nobody had seen or spoken to my dad, and that they feared there was abuse going on financially. Um -- I've tried to point out to this judge to look at these reports, look at the hospital reports where my mother -- it's on the records where my mother assaulted -- there was an assault that took place in the Comprehensive Cancer Center at CHOMP, where my mother and father each assaulted each other unfortunately. My father asked where he wanted to go, and he said, "I want to get the hell out of here, and I want to go with my son," more or less the sum of it all. Judge Scott shut me up. He told me that he was not going to allow me to punish - this is not exact word vocabulary, but the sense of it was that he was not going to allow me to punish the people who have made these accusations towards me and use his court to do it. And he went on and was actually quoted in the Monterey Herald as saying, the most foul stuff he'd heard out of his mouth came out of my mouth that day. In that same report, Ms. Navarro was stated is that I had a fair chance of winning my case at trial if I had chose to go, but the only chance I had of seeing my dad1211 was if I made this plea So going on with this sentencing date in front of Judge Scott, there was no mention of the deal. It was three years probation. I got five years. I was supposed to see my dad. It didn't happen. Right then and there, with my lawyer standing next to me, I said, "Ms. Navarro, I would like to withdraw my plea right now. Whatever has to be done, I want to withdraw my plea. I want to take my case to trial. I'l] take my chances with the jury." She said to me, "Mr. Cubbage, you're my last case. I no longer work for the Monterey County Public Defender's Office, and I have a plane to catch to Costa Rica Good luck." I continued to -- from the Monterey County Jail -- to make contact with the Monterey County Public Defender's Office, so that I could have a new lawyer appointed to me, so that I could, in fact, withdraw my plea and take my case to trial. I recall calling the Monterey County Public Defender's Office more than one hundred times. I actually stopped counting. I believe it was 105 times. At one point, I got Mr. Egar on -- excuse me -- Mr. Don Landis on the telephone, and I tried to summarize what I just explained to you now, about the issues at hand with Ms. Lisa Navarro as my lawyer, and what was supposed to happen, what didn't happen, and that I want my day in court. So as I'm requesting to Mr. Landis to please send me a new lawyer and file these documents, he's telling me to stop. He's literally speaking over me on the telephone. And if the Court can subpoena the -- you know, on the phone it says you're being recorded. So if this Court could subpoena any recordings aboutoN oor on = 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1212 the conversations that took place, I'd be happy to have the Court subpoena those recordings. Mr. Landis was aggressive spoke over me, and was insistent that if I continued to speak about the facts of my case over the telephone, or the circumstances, that he would hang up the telephone on me. The conversation ended by where Mr. Landis had instructed me to come down to the Monterey County Public Defender's Office when I was released from the Monterey County Jail. So I did. And -- actually, I made some calls first, and I did not get a return call, so I went in there, physically, unannounced. I've got a document I'd like to provide to the Court as my evidence. And it is a cover from the Monterey County Public Defender's Office. It's dated August the 20, 2012, roughly 10 days after I was released from the Monterey County Jail. And it's date-stamped two p.m., where I met with Mr. Egar. It provides my telephone number. It -- and -- and the -- regard - regarding appeal of charge. So the regard is appeal of charge It gives my telephone number. And initially, I was on my way out the door leaving this note. I was on my way out the door saying, please call me back. However, Mr. Egar walked in the door as I was leaving, and he actually met with me So this is a document I would like to provide as evidence THE COURT: I -- I actually believe you. THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Okay Thank you. Thank you, Your Honor THE COURT: Very good. You may proceed THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: So in that meeting with1213 Nr. Egar, I recalled the words, specifically, you know. "You know, maybe you need to get on with your life, Mr. Cubbage." And he had informed me that it was too late to withdraw my plea and that, at this point in time, we needed to have a -- a restitution hearing, and that I would be appointed a lawyer, in the future, for this restitution hearing. So again, that was 8/20 of 2012. It was roughly January that I received Mr. Jeremy Dzubay as my lawyer for this restitution hearing, Your Honor And in the restitution hearing, I had not seen Mr. Dzubay in some months. Actually, quite a long time. I'd been in the county jail for a total of six months, and it had been some months prior to that, that he had been off my case. I had informed Mr, Dzubay of -- I continued where we'd left off last not only about my complaints about Ms. Navarro prior, but I actually informed him of the circumstances that I just revealed to you now, Your Honor, about what continued under the counsel of Ms. Lisa Navarro. And I informed him of my meeting with Mr. Egar, and Mr. Dzubay had -- he's very astute in the area of law, and he did the required research, to my understanding, and he came back to me, and he told me that he was in the process of filing what was called a habeas corpus? Bear with me, Your Honor. I appreciate your patience A habeas corpus and the ineffective counsel complaint And Mr. Dzubay actually came back to me and told me that he was not going to be able to continue with helping me to reach my goals, which was to file these -- these -- I guess you call them motions? The request for the habeas corpus and ineffectiveeN oon on = 4 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 24 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1214 counsel. He informed me that his boss -- he didn't name anybody. He didn't say Don Landis. He didn't say Jim Egar But he said his boss had actually instructed him not to work effectively towards my goals, because he told me that he had been instructed by his superiors, is what he told me. He told me his boss. And he had been instructed not to. And Mr. Dzubay was kind enough to educate me about the law in the area of this circumstance was that he would now be required to file an ineffective counsel complaint against one of his coworkers under the same law firm, and that, ethically -- I believe it was ethically. I could be mistaken -- that he could not do this and that his boss had instructed him not to So -- you know, I was rather frustrated, I must admit And I'd like to just take a quick step back, if I can, to an e-mail that I would also like to provide as evidence, dated 12/6 of 2012, and it's -- it's addressed to Mr. Egar of the Monterey County Public Defender's Office, as well as Dennis Taylor of the Monterey County Herald. And this e-mail goes on -- it's three pages of comments. I'm going to just make it brief. It goes on to say that the restitution hearing that’s scheduled, that I would -- I would request that Mr. Dzubay be reappointed as my counsel. Actually, my words are, "My case has involved more than 15,000 documents, and I believe it will take a new appointed lawyer a month to know the facts in the way that Mr. Dzubay already understands. Three different lawyers have already been appointed to me under your leadership. The last one was addressing my dad by the name of Mr. Shapiro." So I went on to -- to outline in this e-mail the things that I was1215 accused of, which the facts show otherwise. And I stated in this e-mail that, "Mr. Egar, I took your advice in accepting the deal which was offered by the Monterey County DA's Office. A five-week trial is a long time, and I did so" - MADAM REPORTER: I'm sorry, a five-week trial is a lot of time? THE WITNESS: "A five-week trial is a long time, and I did so to avoid risk of inadequate representation and the time I would have been subject to if we had lost." Ns. Navarro kept stressing that I was looking at 15 -- she gave me a chart, actually. It broke down the years that I would be spending in prison, and it was somewhere on the low of 13 years and somewhere on the high of 20 years of my life. And I must tell you that I was terrified. I was not only terrified but I was overwhelmed and stressed that my ability to defend myself and show the facts supported by evidence in a court of law was not going to happen. I didn't -- and so -- so in this -- um -- I state -- and I'11 end this e-mail. It states that "My lawyer, Lisa Navarro, at sentencing said, ‘Mr. Cubbage had a good chance of winning his case if it had gone to trial.’ I think about those words every day, and I regret taking the advise provided by you and Ms. Navarro. I regret not taking my case to trial and allowing the facts to be heard. Now, I will never be allowed to see my dad." (Brief pause.) THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: “As a result of my plea, pain which comes in this reality is life changing. My father is everything in the world to me, and I to him. Dad's fears have1216 now come true. My family now has all of his assets, and he's been placed in a nursing home where he is not allowed to see the one he loves most. Dad's girlfriend of 20 years calls me regularly and cries about not" -- "Dad not being able to see her." Excuse me. So Mr. Egar called me after this e-mail, and he agreed to appoint Mr. Dzubay. And -- and, then, that's when we moved forward to what I've already disclosed to the Court about a filing the conflict of interest, which Mr. Dzubay had informed me his boss had instructed him not to file, and the ineffective counsel, Your Honor. So now, we're in the -- now, we are in the restitution hearing, and we're in front of Judge -- Honorable Judge Scott And -- and this is a declaration that was signed by me and submitted to the courts. It's page one, line 19. And it states: "On April 12, 2013, upon arriving at the courthouse at eight a.m., I was told by my attorney that Judge Russell Scott had informed my attorney and Deputy District Attorney David Rabow that Judge Scott would be disqualifying himself from my case due to the appearance of a conflict, to wit, that” judge's -- "Judge Scott's son is a named partner in a law firm which previously presented one of the victims in this case, and that the fees paid to this law firm were being sought and restitutions." I saw Mr. Scott, I believe, somewhere between 50 and 100 times on this case, and it was never divulged that he was actually the father of my mother's -- his father's a lawyer who filed a divorce on behalf of my mother. And the accusations against me were that I kidnapped my dad and nobody had seen my1217 dad. My mother had actually received a six-figure financial settlement. And in the documents that Mr. Dzubay has provided to you, it's a -- you will see the information enclosed, Your Honor. You'll see both the prosecution's allegations -- THE COURT: So I'm just going to ask you to slow down a little bit for the court reporter THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: Yes, Your Honor. Yes, Your Honor. THE COURT: Thank you. Go ahead. THE DEFENDANT CUBBAGE: I don't know if you'd had a chance to review the documents that Mr. Rabow has submitted to you, or are rebuttal, I believe you call it, on behalf of Mr. Dzubay on my behalf. And -- all I can say is, they're night and day, and the accusations that are made on the DA's office is one thing. And I'm quite happy with the work that Mr. Dzubay had done in terms of organizing the facts supported by evidence to show that the claims were not only not which is stated in the prosecution's side, but that the facts would be disclosed, and he provided those, included documents, reports, dates, report numbers. And I apologize. I'm losing my train of thought and I want to regroup. I apologize. I just lost my train of thought, and I kind of went on. And I apologize, and I'm going to pull myself ‘in now So on April the 12th, upon arriving at the courthouse -- um -- Judge Scott recused himself. And on Apri 42th of 213 (sic) -- April 12, 2013, Your Honor, my attorney told me I was allowed to waive the judicial disqualification1218 Um -- and if I did waive the disqualification, the case would remain with Judge Scott, and if I did not waive the judicial disqualification, my case would be assigned to another judge After being informed of this news -- um -- I became extremely stressed. Anxious. I was confused. I couldn't breathe literally went into a panic. And I believe that -- I believe that I was suffering from symptoms of my PTSD, and I had informed Mr. Dzubay at the time. And I told him that I was confused and extremely anxious, and -- and -- and what about what this meant about my case, Your Honor, and how it -- um - would affect my case. And I did. I became -- suffering from signs of debilitating anxiety, confusion, stress, disorientation, and -- and I -- I had informed Mr. Dzubay that I wasn't clear on what to do And you should note, Your Honor, that some weeks prior roughly four weeks prior, maybe as late as eight weeks prior, Mr, Dzubay, I -- I'm sure that in his interactions with me, he would -- he would know that when I'm under extreme moments of stress, and I -- I had informed him of -- of -- um -- my ailment, Your Honor I'd actually provided him my doctor's medica’ ‘information, where the doctor -- where I was diagnosed with PTSD, Your Honor. And it actually stems back some years where my -- my best friend of 23 years was murdered, and he died in front of me. And -- and then the other gentleman, who was also a friend of mine, killed himself, and this was the beginning of what led to my illness. Which has no relevance, and I apologize for that.1219 So after informing Mr. Dzubay of my state of mind and my confusion about signing this document -- um -- Mr. Dzubay allowed me to sign the document, Your Honor. And I believe it's a 170.3, possibly a 170.6, something like that -- some - some -- something like this, Your Honor. It's a disqualification of the judge. And he allowed me to sign it And I recall the next day contacting Mr. Dzubay and informing him that, you know, it's a new day. Time passed. I'm calmer now, that I've been able to think a little more clearly. I'm in a different state of mind, and that I did -- I thought it was a mistake to actually sign that document and that I would like to withdraw that document, Your Honor. It's my personal opinion that -- um -- that Mr. Dzubay could have maybe offered me an opportunity to think on it a day or two or a week -- um -- when I'd informed him that I was suffering at that moment in time when the document was to be signed, which was, I believe roughly within a 15-minute time period of being back in front of Judge Scott. So in terms of ineffective counsel on Mr. Dzubay's part -- um -- my only claim, Your Honor, against Mr. Dzubay is that after I had informed him that I was confused, stressed suffering from PTSD and could not make a clear decision on this, that did he not advise me to think on it, knowing what this actually meant, knowing that this judge was the father of the alleged victim's lawyer. At that -- at that time, when we were -- when I signed the document, I was just kind of -- I recall being under extreme stress and pointing out to Mr. Dzubay that my accuser is not the alleged victim, but it's my sister1220 and her officer, Deputy Shapiro, that their lawyers are a former prosecutor with the Monterey County District Attorney's Office and someone who I believe could possibly still be working part time with the Monterey County District Attorney's Office, as well as, now, the judge's son as the -- as the lawyer, and I started looking at all of these people involved in my case, my inability to bring my case forward and have an opportunity to take it to trial to be heard, and all of it, I think contributed to the state of mind that I was in when I signed that document. And -- and I do recall expressing to Mr. Dzubay all of these points that I mentioned, with the people, the players involved in my case. And again, going back to the documents, the facts supported by evidence: One, the DA's documentation that they're providing is the claims against me And Mr. Dzubay's hard work and the research and the investigation that was done to show that those accusations were in fact, not true. Um -- so, again, we're now at the next day. I believe it was roughly the -- the -- so I'd signed the document which allowed Mr. Honorable Judge Scott to stay on the case. The next day I contacted Mr. Dzubay, asked him to withdraw it, which he did, and we ended up -- so Mr. Scott denied my Marsden motion and we went ahead with Honorable Judge Pamela Butler. And Ms. Butler -- so Mr. -- I apologize. Prior to moving on with Ms. Butler, Mr. Honorable Judge Scott had said that he would deny my Marsden motion, but wanted to think a week or so on recusing himself and allowing me to withdraw this 170.3. So we came back to court -- and I don't recall the date exactly, YoureNoaanron "1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1221 Honor. It was -- I want to say maybe the 8th of May. I don't recall exactly, so I don't want to state, for the record. But in that hearing, Honorable Scott had agreed that -- um -- that I was in a state where I was very confused and anxious, and I think he might have used the word “manic,” Honorable Judge Scott. I think he may have used the word "manic." And so he in fact, did withdraw himself from the case. And we ended up in front of Judge Butler, Honorable Judge Butler. And Ms. Butler denied both my request for the Marsden motion -- oh, she denied the Marsden motion, Your Honor. And -- and prior to that court hearing with Honorable Judge Butler, my lawyer, Mr. Dzubay, and I were having a conversation about what would happen if Ms. -- we're discussing issues pertaining to, his boss had instructed him not to file the habeas corpus, not to do this. And so next is, okay. Well, he's not able -- his boss is ordering him not to work in my interests, which I feel is a conflict of interest. And I don't know the law, but I feel that in any profession there would be a code of ethics of some sort that states that - that it's your bound duty, your obligation, it's your responsibility to ensure that whoever you're doing business with is -- is ina -- in a nature of good faith, and that you're dedicated to that. And unfortunately, I feel that Mr. Dzubay's hands were tied by his boss, which was the conflict of interest So we were discussing what would happen if Ms. Butler had denied my Marsden motion. And the long story made short would be that I'm going to end up in a restitution hearing. I could appeal a restitution hearing. The million dollars that's being requested for the $400,000 I was accused of stealing, which Mr. Dzubay has