Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz’s arraignment Thursday on four
felony counts for election forgery was continued to next Wednesday,
and his attorney challenged the prosecution’s request that the
supervisor be booked into the county jail, according to
lawyers.
Hollister – Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz’s arraignment Thursday on four felony counts for election forgery was continued to next Wednesday, and his attorney challenged the prosecution’s request that the supervisor be booked into the county jail, according to lawyers.
De La Cruz’s attorney, Arthur Cantu, made a motion to disqualify Judge Steven Sanders which postponed the arraignment until De La Cruz can enter a plea before another judge, he said.
“Judge Sanders has always been fair with my cases, but in an abundance of caution because he was county counsel for a significant amount of time, we thought it would be prudent to have Judge Sanders not appear on the case,” Cantu said.
De La Cruz was directed by the district attorney’s office to be booked at the San Benito County Jail before Thursday’s court date, but hasn’t yet because he believes the charges are groundless and that the district attorney’s office failed to comply with the legal guidelines for having someone booked.
“Mr. Sarsfield has no evidence,” De La Cruz said. “The old Board of Supervisors financed an investigation just on me, and all it deals with is 75 cents. I am a political prisoner now. They want to put me in jail for my political views.”
De La Cruz’s charges stem from an investigation commissioned by the San Benito County Board of Supervisors after De La Cruz beat Cruz by only 10 votes in the March 2004 District 5 race for supervisor. Sarsfield charged De La Cruz several weeks before he was sworn in as supervisor and originally offered him a deal that would have whittled his felony charge down to a misdemeanor with no jail time, on the condition that he give up politics for life. De La Cruz passed on the deal, and soon after Sarsfield charged him with three more misdemeanor charges.
If De La Cruz is found guilty, he would be thrown off the Board of Supervisors, and could spend up to five years in prison.
In response to the felony counts, De La Cruz said he mistakenly signed a petition with three signatures gathered by someone else worth a 75-cent discount toward his filing fee and submitted it to the elections office.
Sarsfield charged him with three misdemeanor charges for illegal use of voter registration information and threatening an investigator. Sarsfield said De La Cruz inappropriately accessed the voter database to look up the address of the investigator, Aaron Tripp, who was probing allegations that De La Cruz campaigned illegally. During an interview, Sarsfield said De La Cruz allegedly told Tripp he “knew where he lived,” and Tripp took the statement as an attempt to intimidate him.
Sarsfield directed all comments concerning Thursday’s court hearing to Deputy District Attorney Denny Wei, who is trying the case.
Wei said the common practice of the district attorney’s office is to send a letter to the defendant asking them to appear in court on a designated date and to be booked, and that challenges to the booking request are rare.
He said defendants are booked as a way for law enforcement to maintain accurate and up-to-date records, and that he hasn’t decided if he will issue an arrest warrant for De La Cruz, which would require him to be booked.
“We’re looking into the whole booking issue,” he said. “Right now we need to look things up regarding our options and make a determination.”
But Cantu doesn’t believe De La Cruz should set foot in the jail, and that the only reason the DA’s office wants him to be booked is to humiliate him.
“It would raise the question of whether this is an act of vindictiveness,” Cantu said. “I am really hoping that Mr. Sarsfield and I can sit down and put the politics aside, and with some independent mediator see if we can’t resolve this whole thing.”
The arraignment of a woman Sarsfield charged with felony voting twice in the election, Maria Guadalupe Araujo, whose husband De La Cruz recently appointed to the county planning commission, was also continued to Jan. 19.
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or em*******@fr***********.com
