There is an important new development in the recently-filed lawsuit of the Los Angeles County taxpayer against unlawful taking of monies out of taxpayers’ coffers by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judges on top of their state-regulated salaries. California constitution and statutory law specifically prohibit judges from receiving any monies beyond their stated-regulated salaries. Chief Justice of the State of California (Ronald George) has described the monies taken out of public coffers by LA judges as “double-dipping.”
On My 1, 2006, the Supervising Judge of Los Angeles County, Charles McCoy, issued an order disqualifying himself and all other judges of Los Angeles Superior Court from hearing the taxpayer’s case which charges him and all other LA County judges with having received and accepted illegal payments on top of their salaries. This is clearly the first victory for the taxpayer’s lawsuit which has directly targeted the illegal payments to LA County judges.
The monies quietly taken out of the taxpayers’ coffers by the 583 Judges of Los Angeles Superior Court (around $24,000,000.00 per year) are in fact illegal and no legal basis could be found for their disbursement under California Constitution and statutory law. It appears that huge the twenty-four-million-dollar-a-year sink-hole in the public’s deficit-ridden coffers is some form of illegal "protection money" since state law strictly prohibits judges from accepting "gifts" of more than $250 in value in any calendar year. The payments (around $4,000.00 per month to each judge on top of their salary) have been code-named by the benefiting judges and their allies as “local judicial benefits.” California state law, in no ambiguous terms, strictly prohibits a California judge from receiving any compensation beyond his/her state-mandated salary (Cal Gov Code § 68206.6). Also, "No judge shall accept gifts from any single source in any calendar year with a total value of more than two hundred fifty dollars ($250)." (Cal Code Civ Proc § 170.9(a)). At an era when life-saving public health and other vital programs are being slashed across the board due to lack of necessary funds in the public coffers, taxpayers of Los Angeles are entitled to fully understand how each Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge has been taking around $40,000.00 annually from the public in violation of state law and on top of their state salary of around $150,000.00 per year.
The tentacles of the exclusive "Double-dippers Club of Los Angeles County Judiciary" have rapidly expanded themselves to highly strategic positions beyond Los Angeles County Courthouses within the past few years. Bush-appointed United States Attorney for Central District of California, Debra Wong Yang who is the Chief Federal Prosecutor for the entire Southern California (population: 18 million) held membership in the exclusive Club while she was a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge before being appointed by George W. Bush to the top federal law enforcement position in the largest US Attorney office outside of Washington, D.C.
A significant majority of federal judges George W. Bush has appointed to the federal bench in Los Angeles Federal District Court (around 6 out of his 8 appointments to LA Federal Court) held membership in the exclusive Club as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judges before being appointed to the federal bench.
Evidence in at least one federal case known so far shows that one of the Bush-appointed federal judges (Samuel J. Otero) who held membership in the exclusive Double-dippers Club as a Los Angeles County Judge has been presiding over a corruption case filed in federal court against Los Angeles County and LAPD. All of Judge Otero's rulings so far have been in favor of LAPD and Los Angeles County and sharply against the young mother and the undisputed court evidence which shows that LAPD and county officials have held her incarcerated for four (4) years without any conviction and solely based on evidence fabricated by LAPD. A top forensic audio engineer who has analyzed the recording of the LAPD's radio communications during the night of the woman's warrantless arrest at her home 4 years ago has recently testified, through use of a computer-generated report, that the LAPD's 90-minuted audio cassette tape of the incident has been tampered with at 139 different locations along its length. Judge Otero has ignored the large collection of undisputed court-filed evidence against LAPD and has further refused to disqualify himself from the case even though public records show that as a member of the LA County exclusive club he may have continued to receive the double-dipping financial benefits from Los Angeles County taxpayers coffers even as a federal judge.
The young mother's 4-year-old nightmarish incarceration without any conviction in the disease-infested, overcrowded, and inhumanely-maintained Los Angeles jail solely based on evidence fabricated by LAPD and corrupt county officials to cover-up the illegality of the LAPD's initial actions at her home 4 years ago is a truly representative example of a corrupt and brutal police-state system of justice that has rapidly expanded its self-protective tentacles first beyond the LAPD’s Rampart and other stations and then beyond the courthouses of Los Angeles County and has now entrenched itself in strategic federal government positions in Los Angeles during the past few years under the protection of the Bush administration.
With loyal members of the exclusive Double-dippers Club of Los Angeles County placed in key strategic positions in federal court and US Attorneys office, LAPD's acts of misconduct and constitutional violations continue with impunity. The same US Attorneys office in Los Angeles that in November 2000 under leadership of former US Attorney General Janet Reno filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against LAPD for having a "history of arresting persons in Los Angeles without probable cause" is now in bed with LAPD. Ms. Yang's US Attorneys office has proudly described the federal defendant LAPD as a "partner" of the Bush administration even though public records show that LAPD has fiercely resisted reform and that no serious fundamental reform has taken place in LAPD since 2000 - when the US government filed its lawsuit against federal defendant LAPD.
Recently, Ms. Yang shamelessly went even one step further and asked the Federal Judge Gary A. Feess (not a member of the Double-dippers Club) to strike key provisions of a five-year monitoring plan to which LAPD had unwillingly submitted as a result of being named as a habitual violator of constitutional rights of residents of Los Angeles in the original federal lawsuit filed by the Honorable Reno in 2000.
"I have a real question why the [Justice] Department, in my view, wants to walk away from parts of this decree," the Honorable Federal Judge Feess was quoted as saying in response to Ms. Yang's shameless request (Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2006). The courageous honorable federal judge Gary Feess did not budge under pressure from Member Yang of the exclusive Double-dippers Club and in a show of judicial bravery and impartiality ruled against LAPD and subjected LAPD to an additional three-year-period of monitoring under his own supervision. It is to be seen how far the self-protective tentacles of the exclusive Club will have expanded in the next three (3) years in Los Angeles.
More information on this matter and the story of the young mother incarcerated for 4 years without any conviction and solely on evidence fabricated by LAPD can be found at:
http://www.freemarje.com