BREAKING NEWS: Senior Investigator For Yolo County District Attorney's Office Accuses Reisig of Ethical Malfeasance And Much More

Concealing Evidence, Deceptions on the Gang Injunction, Questionable Campaign Tactics Highlight the Seven Page Letter Filled with Accusations.

Senior investigator Rick Gore of the Yolo County District Attorney's Office fired off a letter to Jeff Reisig dated March 5, 2008. In that letter, a seven page long memo, he copied the Yolo County Counsel, Yolo County Human Resources, the State Bar of California and the Attorney General of California.

The implications of this letter run deep, if proven to be true. They reach into the controversial gang injunction, the District Attorney Election against Pat Lenzi, efforts to conceal potentially exculpatory evidence, much more.

He writes:

"Since your election as District Attorney of the county, we have had a few major disagreements concerning what I think are ethical and appropriate behavior compared to your beliefs."

Mr. Gore criticized a number of campaign tactics by Jeff Reisig.

"I did not agree with what I perceived as unethical campaign practices during your campaign."

He refused to write a disparaging letter to the editor as some of his colleagues did, and was ostracized in an inappropriate manner by his colleague.

He goes on:

"However, these bullying techniques did work on many and you got many people to write these personal character attacks against her. We had many closed-door discussions about your campaign in your office doing working hours. I remember saying hi to DDA Lenzi in the hallway and you later called me a traitor and told me I was scared of her. You met with our association and secretly forced our support for you, by using the implied coercion that our boss, Dave Henderson, was going to support you, so we had better support you. You told me the first thing you were going to do when elected was to reassign Supervisor Greg Maursin to welfare since he was being a “pussy” and refused to support you. You made good on this threat and reassigned him to welfare fraud investigations as soon as you were elected. On one occasion, in the middle of the workday, I caught Bruce Naliboff searching DDA Lenzi’s locked desk during the election. He told me he was looking for a case file, but we investigators all know attorneys keep case files on their desk, as she did, not in her desk drawers. I thought all of these tactics were inappropriate and told you so."

Rick Gore further outlines efforts to conceal discoverable evidence during a murder trial.

"One major disagreement you and I had was when you tried to hide and conceal discoverable evidence about a material witness and refused to discover evidence during an on-going murder trial."

He continues:

"Bruce Naliboff told me, in front of you, to “put a muzzle” on Randy Skaggs for talking about this discovery issue. You and I had extensive email discussion about this. Lt. Skaggs was in the office when Dave Henderson had to order you to comply with the law and therefore discover the evidence. I am sure the date of the gun test and the date of discovery of the report will show the long delay in providing this evidence, shooting and gun test, to the defense."

He then goes on to strongly criticize Jeff Reisig for his conduct with the gang injunction, something that Mr. Gore was initially involved in and in fact supported.

"As for the current and past Gang Injunction, when gathering intelligence, contacting active members and working with Detective Villanueva, I fully supported these efforts. However, after seeing this become your political benchmark, I have watched this injunction grow into something I did not want to be associated with or a part of, since I felt it had lost its original intent and purpose."

He admits efforts to mislead the appellate court with regard to initial efforts at noticing a single individual who was not high up in the Broderick Boys organization.

"I also feel you misled the appellate court when you argued, as an officer of the court, that serving only one person during the initial injunction was intended to result in the word getting out to the rest of the Broderick Boys. You and I know that the opposite was true and Wolfington was not high up in the organization and was not expected to pass the word to the others."

He also reveals reasons why they selected Mr. Wolfington to notice.

"I remember you telling me that you specifically selected Mr. Wolfington for being a less than “smart person”, you said he was “too stupid” to show up for court, he lived out of the area (in Sacramento) and he would likely not tell anyone."

Rick Gore no longer agrees with the current gang injunction nor does he think it is needed. However, "an affidavit in support of the injunction under penalty of perjury. I did not want to sign it as written since it was not prepared by me and I thought portions of my affidavit were untrue." He signed an affidavit of support for the second gang injunction that is currently in the process of being challenged.

He continues:

"I was called in by DDA Linden a few days later, and was told [Reisig] had ordered me to sign this injunction and I had no choice. Knowing I could be fired for not following this order, I signed it after changing some of the language."

Finally, he outlines an incident involving the Woodland Police Department. Friends of Reisig were victims of some sort of crime. However, rather than allowing the Woodland Police Department to conduct the investigation and come up with findings, he sent his own investigator and therefore inserted himself into Woodland police department's investigation in a case where he had a personal interest.

"I feel you have sent Bruce Naliboff out on two or more on-going investigations, where your friends have called you and asked for your involvement. Having Bruce Naliboff arriving on scene attempting to direct and influence the investigation, because you have a friend involved appears inappropriate to me and other. I believe you wrote a letter to the Woodland Police Chief stating your authority to do what you wanted. This has the appearance of impropriety appears that you are giving preferential treatment your friends and shows a lack of respect to other law enforcement agencies. I believe this has strained the working relationship between this office and Woodland Police Department."

Mr. Gore also highlights deficiencies in the range training program. DA Reisig has directed the Rangemaster and Firearms Instructors not to document deficiencies and problem seen during range training.

"Since your appointment, you have directed us not to list or document deficiencies or problems that we see during range training."

He continues:

"I think it does the investigators and the public a disservice and puts all Rangemasters and trainers in a difficult and precarious situation. I expressed this disagreement the Chief and the senior Rangemaster, but have followed your directions and have not listed any training deficiencies on any documentation since your directive. To my knowledge, after you took office and gave this directive no training deficiency has been documented. The pattern in our records and emails will support this issue. "

The ramifications of this letter are staggering if this is born out. Efforts to conceal evidence from a murder trial, efforts to lie and deceive the court in the gang injunction case, and other such accusations could spell deep trouble for the District Attorney.

It is clear that the State Attorney General and the California Bar need to do thorough independent investigations into these very serious matters.

The Vanguard will continue to follow this developing story and update you as new information comes to the fore.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting