The Orange County District Attorney is finally pursuing a political corruption case. Remember when a private detective who worked for a law firm that was retained by the Costa Mesa Police Association tried to set up Costa Mesa Jim Righeimber by calling in a bogus DUI? Well, according to an exclusive story by the OC Weekly, the OCDA is going after the CMPA.
Here are a few excerpts from the OC Weekly’s article:
- The Orange County District Attorney’s office is currently investigating, according to source who spoke to the Weekly on condition of anonymity.
- They tell us that DA investigators are specifically targeting the Costa Mesa Police Association (CMPA), the cop union that has battled Righeimer’s efforts to downsize Costa Mesa’s public-employee numbers for years, often to acrimonious lengths. It was the union’s law firm, after all, that employed the private investigator who tried to snitch on Righeimer as a supposed drunk–that is, before the story came out, and the CMPA dropped the law firm faster than Righeimer does with the nice talk to unions come negotiation time.
- Asked for confirmation or denial, OC DA spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder would only say, “We don’t comment on pending investigations.” But it’s known that the DA has been looking into the bizarre case since last summer, one way or another.
- This time around, said sources tell the Weekly that investigators have already visited CMPA offices, asking to look at their books to see if there was any collusion between the union, the law firm, and the private eye on the day Righeimer was subjected to the terrors of the police state (the union and Costa Mesa police officers in general have always denied any knowledge of a conspiracy, and the private investigator himself accepted all responsibility, although he says it wasn’t a DUI set-up but a chick set-up designed to get Riggy’s colleague, Gary Monahan. Um, okay…).
- And said sources also say that Republican activists are pushing for OC DA Tony Rackauckas to file kidnapping and fraud charges against those that targeted Righeimer–fraud, for the obvious reasons, and kidnapping under God-knows-what circumstances.
We hope the OCDA is able to bust the corrupt union bosses who tried to set up Righeimer!