Whipped Cream Difficulties

Do you remember the “Bait Car” incident? In brief, an LA County sheriff’s detective swore under oath that he’d read a suspect his rights; that testimony was contradicted by video taken of the arrest for the “Bait Car” TV series.

Now:

Prosecutors concluded that Det. Anthony Shapiro “willfully, knowingly and intentionally” made false statements when he claimed to have fully read suspects their Miranda rights, according to a memo obtained by The Times. Footage shot by television cameras for the TruTV program “Bait Car” shows that Shapiro never fully read the suspects their constitutional rights, including the right to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning, prosecutors said.

And what is the DA’s office going to do about this? Not a damn thing.

Despite the findings, the district attorney’s office declined to file criminal charges against Shapiro. The office concluded that Shapiro’s false statements did not amount to perjury because they did not play a key role in the decision to arrest the men or in the outcome of the preliminary hearing where Shapiro testified, according to the memo.

Meanwhile, in the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon, Bruce Malkenhorst used to be the city manager. He resigned (and was later convicted of misappropriating public funds). As city manager, he took home $911,000 a year; his pension was the largest in California, more than $500,000 a year.

At least it was until the California pension board cut it back to $115,000 a year, stating that some of his salary was improperly obtained.

So now the 78-year-old Malkenhorst is suing Vernon to make up the difference. His lawyers are making a novel if improbable argument: Because it paid him a high salary, the city is responsible for keeping his retirement benefits at the higher level even though CalPERS balked.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 at 8:46 am and is filed under California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.