Judge throws Cubbison Criminal Case – Anderson Valley Advertiser

The judge of the Supreme Court, Ann Moorman, demonstrated a controversial criminal proceedings against the auditor Cubbison from Mendocino and the former salary billing manager Paula June Kennedy on Tuesday and ended a politically tied law enforcement that was exceeded for two years.

Civil lawyers of Cubbison, a 16-year-old veteran of the district, said on Tuesday evening that they will now push their return as an auditor/treasurer/tax collector of Mendocino County according to the free fall of criminal proceedings.

The lawyer of San Francisco, Therese Cannata, said: “On behalf of Ms. Cubbison, we will request an immediate reinstatement.”

Cannata said Cubbison, which was suspended in October 2023 without payment and services from her post of $ 176,000, will energetically pursue her pending civil lawsuit against the County Board of Supervisors for rejection of her proper procedure.

The potential of Cubbison to record considerable civilian damage from the district, including lawyers' fees, loss of wages and benefits and the professional reputation, is increased by dismissing the criminal proceedings by the court.

The financial missions are high.

The public prosecutor and district costs that are defended against civil disputes will already be 3-4 times the controversial additional payments of $ 68,000 to Kennedy for work during the Covid pandemic, which DA DAVID Eyster claimed in October 2023 to suspend the crimes of public funds.

Eyster rose for taxpayers when he had decided within four months, when he accused Cubbison of the criminal misconduct, to hire Santa Rosa at a price of $ 400 per hour outside the public prosecutor's office to try the case. Civil lawyers who defend the County Board of Supervisors have already charged fees and services of around $ 120,000.

Cubbison had held back from the pocket that the defender of Sonoma County, Chris Andrian, and his investigator Chris Reynolds to combat Eyster's criminal complaint.

The release on Tuesday was a stinging defeat against Eyster, of which the followers of Cubbison believe that she questioned him because of the office expenditure. Eyster supported a plan to merge the two most important financial offices in the district in order to knock Cubbison from their position. When the controversial internal salary problem appeared, Eyster acted and turned his own investigation team into the case after the sheriff's office handed over its results.

For Cubbison, discharge on Tuesday was a great victory and justification destination for the goal of Board critics alongside Eyster. Cubbison risked a criminal register after rejecting Eyster's original offer, only taking an indictment for offense if she put down her post.

From the beginning, the Cubbison case was complicated by Eysters controversial relationship with the examiner and two other examiners who served in front of her.

Cubbison finished Eyster in the foreground after questioning the expenses of the DABüro, including the expenditure for the expenditure for employees, whom he described as “training sessions”. Eyster relied by successfully blocking her preliminary appointment as the Auditor in 2021 after he publicized her publicly at a board meeting. When the controversial additional payment for Kennedy appeared, Eyster had his own investigation team made after work before submitting formal criminal charges against them.

Cubbison, her civilian lawyers and her followers believe that Eyster has targeted her, although the circumstances that were connected to the suspected criminal proceedings in relation to law enforcement were out of focus right from the start.

Sheriff Lt. Andrew Porter, a 30-year-old law enforcement veteran, was examined during the provisional hearing. At the witness stand, Porter confirmed that he had access to County -E emails and other documentaries than he started to examine the Kennedy -Addent Salary, but he did not act to keep it. Within months it was found that the district -e -mail archive system had collapsed and that case documentation efforts are disrupted. After all, many documents were called up, but nobody could determine which relevant material was missing.

In the past few days, the documentation problems have taken another turn when he stated to her own salary check.

During the preliminary hearing, Weer, CEO Antle and others said that they were not aware of the payments, but the internal wage and salary account documents created by the DA's office in the last minute showed something different.

Mooran said Kennedy was transparent in her actions.

“If someone had read the reports, it was clear what she was doing. It was transparent with regard to a serious wage problem that no one had solved at management level, ”said Mooran.

Mooran said she believed that Cubbison knew the details of a likely additional wage agreement between Kennedy and Weer.

In fact, Cubbison acted as a “whistleblower” when she informed the County Counsel's office about impending legal steps by Kennedy if her chronic wage problems were not solved, according to Mooran.

Mooran said: “She did the right thing. She didn't try to cover up something. “

Mooran put evidence of evidence of the feet of Lt. Porter, of whom she believed that they had not dealt professionally about the questions of the employees involved.

“He could not keep E -Mail evidence when he had access before the system collapsed,” said Moorman. “The collapse of the system was not his fault, but his failure to obtain evidence when he had access,” said Mooran.

The judge also found that the investigator did not follow questionable questions related to the retired auditor Weer and Kennedy.

In this case, Moorman was contemptuous and his rejection of the witness stand that he might believe that she had permission to use the obscure district wage code to use itself, an employee, for the chronic hour she used.

“I don't believe him,” said Mooran. The judge quoted Weers evasive answers as a witness to the public prosecutor and his “defensive behavior”.

Mooran contained contemptuously about “deliberate ignorance” of district officials who said during the preliminary hearing that they knew nothing about the obscure district wage code that Kennedy was accused of using for payment.

Mooran said that the relieving evidence, which the investigator of the district prosecutor, Andrew Alvarado, underlined in the last few days of the hearing and were only in their opinion how “transparent” the defendants were about events that were decided by Eyster to submit criminal offenses were accused.

The documents showed that the wage and salary accounting of the district of the district represented in detail, as Kennedy's additional content of administrators, including CEO Darcie Antle and her employees, was widespread over a period of three years, but nobody asked why.

“Everything was there if someone had made the trouble to take a look at it,” said Moorman.

Mooran's decision to reject the criminal proceedings brought the faces of Cubbison, Kennedy and her lawyers relief. They hugged after Mooran ended her statement and declared the case released.

Defender Fredricco McCurry had asked Mororman to throw the case “in the interest of justice” against Kennedy.

“There are no indications of a criminal intention. There is only indications that this employee deals with a state of exhaustion, ”said McCurry.

McCurry added: “The taxpayers still owe her to work under very difficult circumstances.”

The Cubbison lawyer Andrian said the judge “did the right thing here.”

“There was no evidence of putting this case in court,” said Andrian.

Prosecutor Traci Carrillo said that she respected Moorman's decision, “based on the way the evidence came out and what different topics presented themselves”.

“This is exactly the type of case that sometimes simply playing and in a preliminary hearing has to play out in a transparent way (compared to a Grand jury procedure) in order to further evaluate the entirety of the evidence,” said Carrillo.

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Chris Skyhawk: Something good happened on Tuesday. A good woman was relieved. It was set up by our supervisory board for failure. Everyone knew that the combination of auditor controller with the Treasurer Tax collector was a recipe for a mistake. It is far too much for an office. And despite her brave efforts, she was made a scapegoat. It is shameful and shows why we have a failing district. Here, too, our board member, including Ted Williams, should be ashamed. They won't be, but at least they were attributed.