Cheryl Cox has to keep CVESD's secrets for 18 more years to beat this record

I really thought that Cheryl Cox, Pamela Smith and Bertha Lopez, board members of Chula Vista Elementary School District, would do the right thing in my case. I didn't expect much from Patrick "Pat" Judd and Larry Cunningham. But I was wrong. The three women were as bad as the men. They all paid $100,000s of taxpayer money to Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz to cover up wrongdoing at Castle Park Elementary. They knew that this required intimidating witnesses and pressuring employees to commit perjury.

All I lost was a job--at a sick school. I've watched as my fellow teachers have become more ill over the past seven years. I was not the only one harmed. The teachers who told falsehoods under oath, and the teachers who were silent, were harmed, too. But the kids were hurt even more.

Alton Logan (story below) was damaged by the same kind of people who damaged Castle Park Elementary. People who present false testimony to a court, and tell the public, as Cheryl Cox did, that their life is "an open book." The truth is 180 degrees to the contrary.

If I had been in the shoes of these two lawyers who kept the secret of Alton Logan's innocence, I believe I would have come forward with the truth, and risked being disbarred. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I think 90% of lawyers have lost their sense of right and wrong, which is why our justice system so frequently helps the guilty and punishes the innocent.

26-Year Secret Kept Innocent Man In Prison
May 25, 2008
60 Minutes (CBS)
Lawyers Keep 26-Year Secret

...This is a story about an innocent man who languished in prison for 26 years while two attorneys who knew he was innocent stayed silent...

Alton Logan was convicted of killing a security guard at a McDonald's in Chicago in 1982. Police arrested him after a tip and got three eyewitnesses to identify him. Logan, his mother and brother all testified he was at home asleep when the murder occurred. But a jury found him guilty of first degree murder...

Alton Logan's story cuts to the core of America's justice system.

Simon met Alton Logan in prison, where he's spent almost half of his life.

Asked if he still counts the months and days, Logan told Simon, "There’s no need to count the months and the days. Just count the years."

Logan said that during the first five or six years he was "consumed" by anger. "Then I come to the realization that 'Why be angry over something you can't control?'"

Logan, who maintains he didn't commit the murder, thought they were "crazy" when he was arrested for the crime.

Attorneys Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz knew Logan had good reason to think that, because they knew he was innocent. And they knew that because their client, Andrew Wilson, who they were defending for killing two policemen, confessed to them that he had also killed the security guard at McDonald's - the crime Logan was charged with.

"We got information that Wilson was the guy and not Alton Logan. So we went over to the jail immediately almost and said, 'Is that true? Was that you?' And he said, 'Yep it was me,'" Kunz recalled.

"He just about hugged himself and smiled. I mean he was kind of gleeful about it...

"How did you interpret that response?" Simon asked.

"That it was true and that he was tickled pink," Kunz said.

"He was pleased that the wrong guy had been charged...

"Well, ...we have to maintain client confidentiality, just as a priest would or a doctor would...

Asked if they contemplated doing something about it, Coventry told Simon, "We wrote out an affidavit. We made an affidavit that we had gotten information through privileged sources, that Alton Logan was not in fact guilty of killing the officer, that in fact somebody else did it..."

"But the minute he was not sentenced to death, the minute he was sentenced to life in prison, you decided to do nothing?" Simon asked.

"Yes," Kunz said. "I can't explain it. I don't know why that made the difference but I know it did."

"There is no difference between life in prison and a death penalty. None whatsoever. Both are a sentence of death," Logan told Simon...

(CBS) "What did you do to see if there might be some loophole to get everyone out of this fix?" Simon asked the attorneys.

"I researched the ethics of attorney-client privilege as much as I could. I contacted people who are involved in making those determinations. I know Jamie did the same thing," Coventry said.

"I could not figure out a way, and still cannot figure out a way, how we could have done anything to help Alton Logan that would not have put Andrew Wilson in jeopardy of another capital case," Kunz added.

"Couldn’t you have leaked it to somebody? To a reporter, to an administrator, to the governor, to somebody?" Simon asked.

"The only thing we could have leaked is that Andrew Wilson confessed to us. And how could we leak that to anybody without putting him in jeopardy?" Kunz replied. "It may cause us to lose some sleep. But, but I lose more sleep if I put Andrew Wilson’s neck in the in the noose."

"He was guilty and Logan was not. So, yes his head should be in the noose. And Logan should go free. It's perfectly obvious to somebody who isn’t a lawyer," Simon pointed out. "Andrew Wilson was guilty, was he not?"

"Yes. And that's up to the system to decide. It's not up to me as his lawyer to decide that he was guilty and so he should be punished and Logan should go free," Kunz said.

"Do you think you might have been disbarred for doing that, for violating attorney-client privilege?" Simon asked.

"I don't think I considered that as much as I considered my responsibility to my client. I was very concerned to protect him," Coventry explained.

"But here is a case where two men, you two were caught up in this bind. And chose to let a man rot away in jail," Simon remarked.

"In terms of my conscience, my conscience is that I did the right thing. Do I feel bad about Logan? Absolutely I feel bad about Logan," Coventry admitted.

The attorneys say they were so tormented over Logan's imprisonment that they convinced Wilson to let them reveal that Wilson was the real killer after Wilson's death. Late last year, Wilson died. The two attorneys finally took their affidavit out of the lockbox, and they called Logan's lawyer, pubic defender Harold Winston.

Winston had already been trying to get Logan a new trial. He'd found two eyewitnesses who swore Logan was not the killer. Now, with Kunz and Coventry's affidavit, he thinks Logan will finally go free.

[Blogger's note: From what I've seen and read over the years, prosecutors hate to admit they've prosecuted an innocent person. More often than not, they prefer to let the innocent rot in jail.]

"...Everything that was dear to me is gone," Logan, who missed his mother's funeral, told Simon.

His brothers Eugene and Tony told 60 Minutes they've shared Alton's pain, and they always knew that he was no killer. "My brother ain’t got the nature to do nothin' like that in his soul. He ain’t gonna take nobody else's life. We weren't raised like that," Tony said.

"Your brother is 54 now. Can he start again at the age of 54?" Simon asked...

But Alton Logan is still behind bars. "They are quick to convict but they are slow to correct they mistakes," he said...




Cheryl Cox's prosecutor pal Bonnie Dumanis is one of the prosecutors Alton Logan was talking about when he said they are slow to correct mistakes:

Marine Wife Murder Case Still Active
05-30-2008
Cox Communications

(San Diego, CA) -- A judge ruled he still has the authority to completely dismiss the case of Cynthia Sommer who was found guilty of killing her husband and spent a few years in jail, but later had the charges dismissed "without Prejudice". Judge John Einhorn says he may dismiss the case "with prejudice" which means the case could not be re filed, "without" means the prosecution could re file murder charges against Sommers who was alleged to have poisoned her husband in 2002.

Greg Cox fails to address question of how the Steve Castaneda case was initiated--and why the investigation of Cheryl Cox wasn't.

Bob Castaneda, the brother of Chula Vista Councilman Steve Castaneda, raised important questions about the two prosecutions carried out by the San Diego District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit.

Bonnie Dumanis appointed Peter O'Toole to bring in two political opponents of Chula Vista mayor Cheryl Cox for questioning. Both of them were charged with lying during these odd investigations. How did these investigations get initiated? Why were two men prosecuted for felony perjury even though the investigations uncovered no crimes?

Why has a complaint about Cheryl Cox and her agents at Chula Vista Elementary School District been ignored by this "Public Integrity Unit"?

Supervisor Greg Cox has written a letter that does absolutely nothing to answer the questions that have been raised. Of course Cox protests that he has done nothing wrong. But how will he restore the credibility of the District Attorney's office? He makes no effort to do so.

My website has a comparison of the letters by Bob Castaneda and Greg Cox.

The question remains: was the PIU tipster a friend of Cheryl and Greg Cox?

The answer seems sort of obvious, doesn't it?

But what if you're not in a protected group?

I don't belong to a protected group, so CTA didn't think it had to help me when I was targeted by teachers, administrators, union leaders and board members (including Cheryl Cox) who wanted to hide their own crimes.

Dawn Murray's story was horrible. Thank goodness it was finally finished in court. My case was thrown out of court because I didn't file a motion to compel in time.

Here are the first paragraphs of a San Diego Reader story about teacher Dawn Murray. Dawn, if you're out there, what do you think of CTA's actions in the Castle Park Elementary fiasco?

Published on May 20, 1999
A Teacher's Odyssey
By Linnea Due

Oceanside is about as far as you can go in North County without enlisting. Fact is, many people in Oceanside have enlisted, if only indirectly, via their parents. Biology teacher Dawn Murray says that few of the kids who start ninth grade at Oceanside High are still in town by the time graduation rolls around, so she figures she has a maximum of one year to transmit something vital to each student. Murray signed on to teach biology -- and she still does, to the accompaniment of national awards -- but lately the circumstances of her life have added something unexpected to the curriculum: Murray has found herself needing to demonstrate a blend of self-respect and fortitude that should come in handy for her mostly minority students.

Up about a mile from the beachfront, from sidewalks crammed with short-haired guys in pastel-striped short-sleeve shirts, barber shops advertising regulation cuts, and clothing stores specializing in surplus, lies Oceanside High--the underdog school, home of the Pirates. Single-story stucco buildings are strewn across the rise of the hill like a necklace tossed carelessly on a dressing table. The apricot-colored school is faded, grown comfortable with age, with no newfangled architecture to make these '50s ranchers look shabbier than they do already.

It seems like a funny place for someone from Upstate New York to end up, but Oceanside High has been Dawn Murray's home for 16 years, since she got her first teaching job at age 22. "Oceanside is not a school that people die to teach at," she quips. She ticks off the reasons why: gang activity, low test scores, the ancient school, students made transient by military parents. Still, says Murray, "They're good kids, and they need good teachers." It's a simple statement that has made Murray's life a hell. If you count emotional exhaustion as a sort of death, Murray has indeed died to teach at Oceanside.

It started in 1993, when Murray was passed over for a promotion. Discreet inquiries finally netted the reason: the hiring committee had heard Murray was a lesbian. Rumors began circulating around the campus, spread by security and custodial staff: Murray was having sex with a female teacher on the floor, Murray was passionately kissing an employee on school grounds, Murray was "fraternizing on campus during school hours" with another employee. None of this was missed by sharp-eared kids, and Murray did her best to fight, filing complaints with the principal and assistant principal, in each case demonstrating that the rumors were false.

But while she successfully fought each accusation, the employees conducting the rumor mill weren't fired or reprimanded, and the closeted Murray became progressively more isolated and dismayed. Conservative faculty members made disparaging remarks at meetings, formerly friendly colleagues shunned Murray in the hall but phoned her up at night pledging support, and the principal outted her at an in-service on racial discrimination. That meeting turned into such a free-for-all that the facilitator stopped the training. "I didn't say a word," Murray says now. "People were pushing me into a corner and hassling me to come out, but you have to understand, when that first accusation came in, it frightened the hell out of me. People were talking about my sexual orientation -- well, I didn't talk about it."

During the same period, Murray was racking up national awards. She won a fellowship from Princeton and in 1995 was named Outstanding Biology Teacher of the Year. "I could have gone anywhere in the country and written my own ticket," Murray says. She stayed.

"Here's what happened," she explains. "On one of the first days of school, I was asking people's names, and one girl said her name was Patty. A kid in the back spoke up. 'Your name's not Patty, your name's lesbian. I said to him, 'Why do you think calling someone a lesbian would hurt her?' and he said, 'Well, it hurt you, didn't it?' I realized that if I left they would learn that you could run someone out by intimidating them, and I was determined these kids would not learn that from me.

http://www.sdreader.com/php/cityshow.php?id=156

Chula Vista's Sunroad?

Sweetwater River
Here is the opening paragraph of an article in the San Diego Reader. This excellent article documents relationships between the Cox, McMillan and other developer collaboratives.

By Susan Luzaro
August 23, 2007

On any given day, it's difficult to tell who works for the residents of Chula Vista and who works for private industry. A proposed residential development by CV 42 Investments, LLC, represented by Bill Ostrem, who is also the president of EastLake Development Company, lays bare the diseased underbelly of the problem. The development, approximately 550 homes in the lower Sweetwater Valley, has been christened Riverwalk, but a more appropriate name would be Freewaywalk, because the project's 61 acres of low-lying land are bounded by I-805 and SR54.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.sdreader.com/php/cityshow.php?id=1691