FW: SDUT-Braun: Integrity is on trial, in an odd sort of way (Jury laughs at Dumanis' & O'Toole's BIG score)

------ Forwarded Message
From: <char.ayers@att.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:32:18 +0000
To: Charlene Ayers <char.ayers@att.net>
Subject: SDUT-Braun: Integrity is on trial, in an odd sort of way (Jury laughs at Dumanis' & O'Toole's BIG score)

  <http://oas.uniontrib.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/www.uniontrib.com/clickability@Right>  ONLY IN SAN DIEGO
Integrity is on trial, in an odd sort of way
 

April 16, 2008

I don't know Chula Vista Councilman Steve Castaneda. But whenever a politician is accused of corruption, I want to be there for him ˆ in body, if not in spirit.

 

That impulse led me this week to the San Diego courtroom where Castaneda is on trial for perjury. He is accused of lying during an investigation into a crime he did not commit.

 

His trial is the first prosecution by District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' highly touted (by her) Public Integrity Unit, which spent nearly two years looking into the crime Castaneda did not commit.

 

The legal stakes are high. The political stakes are higher. So why were jurors fidgeting and smirking?

Well, as Superior Court Judge Michael D. Wellington noted in court Monday, „This is an unusual case in a number of ways.‰

 

For openers, there's the wacky route it took to the courthouse.

 

Dumanis' unit began looking at Castaneda in 2006, after receiving a tip that he was getting special favors from Ashok Israni, a major Chula Vista developer.

 

As it turned out, Castaneda got no special favors.

 

As it further turned out, even if he had gotten the special favors that were alleged, it wouldn't have been illegal.

 

Case closed? Dream on.

 

Dumanis' office wasn't letting Castaneda off the hook that easy. It decided he lied to the grand jury about the crime he didn't commit, the one that wasn't a crime to begin with. So it charged him with 13 counts of perjury.

 

Prosecutor Patrick O'Toole says Castaneda lied to throw the investigation off its track.

 

Maybe he did. Maybe Castaneda wanted to throw the investigation onto the track of a crime he actually did commit, one that actually was a crime. As a public service.

 

Anything's possible.

 

Another odd thing about this trial: O'Toole keeps trying to talk about the suspicious circumstances that led him to investigate Castaneda in the first place, even though those matters ˆ as Wellington has patiently reminded him ˆ have limited bearing on this case.

 

It's as if the crime that didn't happen is O'Toole's white whale ˆ the one that got away.

 

Here's what did happen: Castaneda rented an apartment for his wife and son (the couple had separated) in an apartment complex that was about to be converted to condos. Like anyone who rented at that time, Castaneda had first dibs on buying the condo. And he became eligible for a $1,000 relocation benefit when he didn't buy in the development.

 

Israni, the complex's owner, had reason to curry favor with Castaneda, and they had the usual developer-politician relationship that involves private meetings and campaign contributions.

 

Yet there's no evidence that Castaneda got a rent break, that the relocation benefit was tailored to line his pocket or that Israni did him any favors.

 

That didn't stop O'Toole from ladling on the innuendo in his opening argument to the jury.

 

„At the end of the day,‰ he said, „you're not going to be called upon to decide whether there was a corrupt relationship between Mr. Israni and Steve Castaneda ˆ whether the law had been broken, whether it was about to be broken, whether it was ever going to be broken between the two of them. Because that's not the test.‰

 

He could just as well have told the jury that it wouldn't have to decide if Castaneda was a hit man for the Mexican Mafia ˆ or was about to become one. So put that out of your mind.

 

True to his word, O'Toole has introduced no evidence to suggest an illicit relationship with Israni. The developer testified for two hours and came across about as corrupt as Gandhi.

 

As for the alleged lies, the most famous concerned whether Castaneda, by renting in Israni's complex, had been angling for a price break when it turned into a condo. Castaneda told an investigator, „I was not planning to buy a condo there.‰

 

To prove otherwise, the District Attorney's Office flew down from Washington the rental agent who showed Castaneda the apartment. She testified that Castaneda asked her how much it would cost once it became a condo.

 

Can you imagine that? A Southern Californian curious about the price of real estate?

 

O'Toole is lucky he didn't have to assemble a jury of people who wouldn't ask that very same question. I doubt he could find 12.

 

The jury that did assemble, meanwhile, hardly seems to be in the prosecution's corner.

 

I'm no expert on body language, and would never try to predict a jury vote. However, when jurors laugh at your questions, or roll their eyes, or mutter under their breath, it's probably not a good thing.

 

Those things happened Monday when O'Toole's own investigator was on the witness stand. He and O'Toole had such profound communication problems it was as if they'd just met, rather than having worked on this case for two years.

 

Later, during the cross-examination, the court waited four minutes while the investigator and O'Toole looked for a key passage in a transcript. I'm sure it took four minutes because I was watching the jurors who were turning around in their chairs to watch the clock.

 

When the passage was found, one juror held up four fingers for the others to see.

 

I don't want to jump to conclusions. Maybe Castaneda will be found guilty. Maybe he's a hit man.

 

But we've all heard of runaway juries, and my guess is that this one wants to run away from this curious case as fast as it can.

---

Gerry Braun: (619) 542-4563; gerry.braun@uniontrib.com <http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080416/MAILTO:gerry.braun@uniontrib.com>


------ End of Forwarded Message