A lawyer for Matthew J. Sarsfield, a police officer and brother
of embattled District Attorney John Sarsfield, admitted his client
was the person behind the Sara M. Jones letter to the editor
criticizing former district attorney Harry Damkar and defense
attorney Arthur Cantu.
A lawyer for Matthew J. Sarsfield, a police officer and brother of embattled District Attorney John Sarsfield, admitted his client was the person behind the Sara M. Jones letter to the editor criticizing former district attorney Harry Damkar and defense attorney Arthur Cantu.
Cantu is filing a defamation of character lawsuit against Matthew Sarsfield, a police sergeant with the Livermore Police Department.
The case stems from a letter to the editor published in the Free Lance last November signed by Sara M. Jones. Among other things the letter accused Cantu of playing the “race card” in a murder case. Cantu, who has had an ongoing feud with the prosecutor since Sarsfield beat him in the 2002 District Attorney race with 67.9 percent of the vote, thinks no such person exists and tracked the letter to the computer belonging to Matthew Sarsfield on Monday.
Matthew Sarsfield deferred all comment to his lawyer, Daniel Pyne III, of the San Jose-based law firm Hopkins & Carley.
“Matt wrote the letter to express his own opinion, not in consultation with his brother (John),” Pyne said.
Pyne said Matthew Sarsfield used a pseudonym to avoid drawing attention to himself personally.
San Benito County District Attorney John Sarsfield denies any involvement in writing the letter.
“I did not write any letter under whatever that stupid name is to the newspaper,” Sarsfield said. “I had nothing to do with it at all.”
The writer chastised Damkar’s administration and Cantu’s representation of the highly-publicized Robert Orabuena trial, and championed the current regime under John Sarsfield. In the letter, Sara Jones accused Cantu of playing the “race card as a desperate leap for a man in desperate times” in his defense of Orabuena, who the District Attorney’s Office was prosecuting for murder at the time.
Cantu said he felt the disparaging remarks adversely affected his personal reputation and that of his law practice.
Matthew Sarsfield’s attorneys have moved to dismiss the case, stating that the letter wasn’t defamatory.
“I’m optimistic we will prevail… and the case will be dismissed shortly thereafter,” Pyne said. “One can simply read the letter and apply the law to the statements made and conclude they are not the type of statements that result in liability for defamation.”
Cantu disagrees.
“This is the real world and the court could turn one way or another, but I doubt it,” Cantu said. “I believe the court sees that I was defamed… and that the last name suggests motive and it suggests bias and it suggests malice.”
Cantu served a subpoena to the San Benito County Marshall’s office Wednesday for John Sarsfield to appear for a videotaped questioning session in Cantu’s office July 20 to explore the district’s attorney’s involvement in writing the letter.
“John Sarsfield will be under my deposition and he will be asked a plethora of questions about his relationship with Matt and his passing of information and his cooperation, if any,” Cantu said. “I’ve never talked to (Matthew) Sarsfield personally, but I know if my brother did something and it was in defense of me, I would probably know all of the most intimate details of that act before and after.”
Cantu began his quest to find the true identity of Sara Jones and sue her for defamation of character when he discovered there had never been a Sara Jones who worked for Damkar.
He originally filed a defamation suit in mid-January in the San Benito County Small Claims Court against Sara Jones and began using the Internet to track down her true identity.
Cantu subpoenaed Jones’ Microsoft Hotmail account which produced five Internet provider (IP) numbers, which he then traced back to SBC Internet services.
He sent a subpoena with the IP numbers to SBC’s records department in San Antonio, Texas, which would give him the name and address of the computer where the e-mail was sent from. Before he could obtain the name from SBC, he received a motion to quash the subpoena from an anonymous law firm, he said.
With more investigation, he determined the anonymous law firm to be a San Jose-based firm called Hopkins & Carley, and Jones’ attorneys to be Pyne and Tracy Loftesness.
In Jones’ motion to quash Cantu’s lawsuit, she cited First Amendment rights to engage in anonymous or pseudonymous free speech.
“Free speech does not extend to false speech,” Cantu said. “The false statements about… the charges and who she was, and now we know is a he, removed Sara Jones from all protection and subjected her to the classic rules of defamation of character.”
Cantu’s first suit was dismissed because the judge ruled that Sara Jones had not been personally served by Cantu.
“I never served Sara Jones and it’s true, but how could I because I didn’t know who she was?” Cantu said. “So that case was dismissed and I re-filed it in Superior Court in the beginning of March.”
Cantu then sent another subpoena requesting the real name of Sara Jones under the new case, and through a series of legal maneuvers obtained the name from SBC on Monday.
Cantu and Pyne will be discussing a date for Matthew Sarsfield to appear for a videotaped deposition sometime in mid-July, Cantu said.
After that he is looking for a settlement conference so the matter can be resolved short of a jury trial, where a mediator could be appointed to suggest a reasonable settlement, he said.
“Maybe an offer of attorney’s fees and some monetary damages for my good name and my business being defamed,” he said. “In a civil court there’s only one thing and that’s monetary damages.”
The next court hearing will be held June 14 in the San Benito County Superior Court under Judge Steven Sanders at 2:30 p.m.
CANTU’S SEARCH FOR SARA M. JONES
– Cantu uses Sara M. Jones’
e-mail address to obtain five Internet provider (IP) addresses by subpoenaing them from Microsoft Hotmail.
– Using the IP numbers, Cantu tracks them back to Internet service provider SBC
– He subpoenas SBC for the name and address of where the computer is
located that sent the e-mail
– The individual using the pseudonym Sara M. Jones hires lawyers to stop Cantu from obtaining her true identity
– The case gets tied up in the court system for months
– Cantu obtains the name of the real Sara M. Jones, Matthew J. Sarsfield, on Monday
– Cantu plans to subpoena Matthew J. Sarsfield and San Benito County District Attorney John Sarsfield to explore the relationship of the two men within 30 to 40 days
