Vincent Cardinalli Sr., was arrested on scores of felony counts
stemming from a tow and sue scam, he’s decided to fire his defense
attorney and represent himself, a decision that will surely set the
case months back, attorneys said.
More than a year after Vincent Cardinalli Sr., was arrested on scores of felony counts stemming from a tow and sue scam, he’s decided to fire his defense attorney and represent himself, a decision that will surely set the case months back, attorneys said.
Cardinalli, 65, his son Paul Greer, 31 – formerly Vincent Cardinalli, Jr., Greer’s sister Rosemary Ball and her husband Michael Ball face 169 counts of conspiracy, perjury, forgery, attempted grand theft and other felony charges stemming from hundreds of lawsuits filed by Cardinalli and Greer in hopes of collecting towing and storage fees for their defunct towing businesses.
Cardinalli and Greer were arrested in June 2007 following an eight-month investigation conducted by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Sixteen months later, the case has not yet gone to preliminary hearing. Defense attorneys have dropped out along the way. The case has been transferred from South County to San Jose. The attorneys who did manage to plow through countless stacks of evidence have been called away to other cases. And now, after months of working to coordinate their schedules and delve into what is expected to be a six-week long preliminary hearing, attorneys learned that Cardinalli dropped his lawyer and will take up the role himself.
The family’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 20 in a San Jose courtroom and Deputy District Attorney Dale Lohman is ready to go, she said. However, in light of recent developments, she said she expects more delays.
“I wasn’t surprised,” she said of Cardinalli’s request to represent himself. Lohman has been ready to begin the preliminary hearing for months, but she’s been waiting while one of the defense attorneys is tied up in another trial.
The decision by a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge to grant the motion allowing Cardinalli to represent himself could set the case back again while Cardinalli familiarizes himself with what could amount to more than a dozen boxes worth of paperwork, said Greg Adler, an attorney for Copart, Inc., a Fairfield auto salvage company that has fended off several of the family’s suits.
“He’s going to have tens of thousands of pages of documents to go through,” he said. “It’s a delay tactic used by people like him who know how to game the system.”
When cases are delayed, witnesses move away or their memories fade. Meanwhile, the longer a defendant can remain in county jail awaiting trial, the longer he can delay the possibility of experiencing the much tougher environment of state prison, Adler said.
Cardinalli’s former lawyer Cameron Bowman, a San Jose criminal defense attorney and conflict counselor, will have to go over the evidence with a fine toothed comb, and redact victims’ personal information, before handing it over to Cardinalli, a process that could take months, Adler said.
Bowman did not return phone messages.
Despite the delays, it’s a defendant’s Constitutional right to defend themselves, retired Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Joseph Biafore said. Although Biafore was not privy to the details of the case and didn’t even want to know what the case involved, he said that, in general, it wasn’t unusual for defendants to represent themselves. But after 30 years of experience on the bench, Biafore said defendants would be smart to hire professional representation.
“They think they can do a better job, but things get nasty and they start yelling for their lawyer again,” he said. “When they’re up against an experienced DA, they find out really quickly that they can’t represent themselves.”
Biafore said he believes that many defendants sincerely think they can represent themselves until they get into hot water. But some of the “wily ones” may use the tactic as a ploy to stall the case.
Whether Cardinalli intentionally planned to delay the case or actually thinks he’s better suited to represent himself than Bowman, the hearing will, most likely, be delayed. When the case is finally heard, Lohman will present a string of about 75 witnesses, from custodians of record to process servers to victims.
“You name it,” she said. She plans to begin with some of the particularly compelling stories in an effort to convince the defense that she means business.
Before a June 6 court appearance, Cardinalli faced a potential third strike felony, which could have landed him in prison for life. He was being held in a Santa Clara County jail without bail. The previous two strikes involved felony arson convictions from the 1970s. However, one of the arson strikes was dismissed, prompting a June 27 bail hearing.
At the hearing, Lohman pushed for a high bail on the premise that Cardinalli poses a danger to the community, she said. After he posted bail following his first arrest last year, he continued to commit crimes similar to the ones he had been arrested for in the first place, Lohman said. He was taken into custody a second time in February when prosecutors unearthed his previous two felony convictions. He is currently being held in custody.
