At one point in the intense cross-examination of the key investigator in the Chamise Cubbison criminal case, Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman turned to a prime prosecution witness and demanded an answer.
Moorman asked whether county taxpayers were out “a single dime” paying for extra work that all parties – investigators, prosecutors, county officials, and the Auditor’s Office – seem to agree that Paula June Kennedy, the county’s former payroll manager and Cubbison co-defendant, had put in during the three years of the Covid pandemic.
Sheriff’s Lt. Andrew Porter looked startled and replied softly, “No.” Kennedy had not taken anything more than what everyone involved agreed she had earned, said Porter.
However, county taxpayers are footing far bigger bills stemming from District Attorney David Eyster’s decision to pursue criminal prosecution of Kennedy and elected Auditor Chamise Cubbison.
Local taxpayers are also on the hook for Cubbison’s civil litigation targeting the county Board of Supervisors for immediately suspending her without pay and benefits without giving the auditor a hearing to defend herself.
Documented taxpayer costs are nearly twice the disputed $68,000 in extra pay DA Eyster cited 16 months ago when he filed a single felony misappropriation of public funds each against Cubbison and Kennedy.
So far, the county of Mendocino has been billed $119,243 by two outside law firms engaged in prosecuting the criminal case and defending the county Board of Supervisors in the related civil lawsuit.
That figure, however, does not represent additional county costs of investigative and court-related services and the burden on the county Public Defender’s Office to provide a legal defense for co-defendant Kennedy, who qualifies because of her inability to pay for a private defense.
Cubbison is experiencing significant costs of her own by having to hire private attorneys to defend herself against the DA’s criminal charges, and to pursue civil litigation for damages against the county that could cost local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars more if she succeeds.
The County Counsel’s Office provided the costs documented after requests made under the California Public Records Act.
They are just the beginning. Typically, felony trials are expensive, no matter who is paying the bill. Civil litigation can drag on for months, even years, requiring significant legal costs.
Records released by County Counsel Charlotte Scott show the San Francisco law firm of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore has already billed the county $97,172 for fees related to defending the county against Cubbison’s pending civil lawsuit. Attorneys for the firm had advised the Board of Supervisors at the time of Cubbison’s suspension that its action was proper and legal.
Cubbison’s civil attorney, Therese Cannata of San Francisco, recently won a favorable court ruling to continue deposing retired Auditor Lloyd Weer, a central figure in both the civil and criminal cases, and to preserve for trial the complete deposition of retired county Treasurer-Tax Collector Shari Schapmire.
The depositions are critical to Cannata’s ability to show that DA Eyster waged a behind-the-scenes vendetta against Cubbison with the help of some members of the Board of Supervisors. Internal documents and a video of his public appearance before the board damning the auditor document how Eyster quarreled with Cubbison for three years over his own office spending before seizing on the disputed extra pay as an issue to accuse her and Kennedy of criminal misconduct.
In her defense, Cubbison contends that Weer was engaged in setting up the extra pay for Kennedy beginning in late 2019 while he was still in charge of the office. Cubbison was Weer’s assistant before he retired in September 2021, and she was later elected to lead a merged Auditor-Controller and Treasurer-Tax Collector office as mandated by the Board of Supervisors.
Special Prosecutor Traci Carrillo’s law firm of Perry, Johnson, Anderson, Miller & Moskowitz of Santa Rosa has already billed the county of Mendocino $22,070 for her services through December. The amount does not include Carrillo’s fees and expenses for four days of the preliminary hearing before it stalled and was delayed until Feb. 24.
If, at the end, the Cubbison case is bound for trial, taxpayer costs for prosecutor Carrillo alone will escalate sharply to cover her $400 per hour fee. Eyster, in January 2023, after resisting calls to step aside because of his conflicts with Cubbison, finally hired Carrillo at that hourly rate – high by Mendocino County standards – and agreed then to pay her law firm a $10,000 retainer.
Lt. Porter, county CEO Darcie Antle, former Auditor Weer, and other witnesses have all testified during the preliminary hearing that there was no doubt Kennedy worked the hours during the Covid pandemic that she collected pay for, prompting Judge Moorman’s question about county taxpayer cost.
At issue is whether Kennedy, as Payroll Manager, was given the nod by either Cubbison or Weer or decided to act on her own to use an obscure payroll code to reimburse herself because she had exhausted compensatory time off that salaried county employees can draw instead of overtime.
On the last day of the preliminary hearing, a former county payroll clerk testified that documents provided by IT seemed to show that Kennedy adjusted her pay after overall department payrolls were completed.
The preliminary hearing in the criminal case is scheduled to resume Feb. 24. At the conclusion, Judge Moorman is expected to decide whether to bind the case over for trial or approve pending defense motions for dismissal.
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