TS - Witness: AG's office declined to investigate Humboldt DA

Witness: AG's office declined to investigate Humboldt DA
By Chris Durant The Times-Standard
Article Last Updated: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 6:15:39 AM PST

EUREKA -- The forewoman of the Humboldt County grand jury that investigated Fortuna City Councilwoman Debi August in 2003 and last year remained on the witness stand in Superior Court Tuesday, with August's attorney continuing his line of questioning.

August faces removal from office if a jury believes she misused her position on behalf of a friend's subdivision. The recent revelations by Judith Schmidt have postponed jury selection in August's conflict of interest trial.

Schmidt continued to answer questions from Greg Rael, August's defense attorney, regarding a box full of documents related to the case.

He asked about a request Schmidt made to the California Attorney General's Office to investigate the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office handling of the case.

She said she was contacted by the Attorney General's Office and was told the case didn't appear to fall within the state's jurisdiction and that it wasn't serious enough.
"My impression was that no investigation would be conducted," Schmidt said. "They did not feel it would be appropriate to take any action at this time."

Rael also asked about unauthorized contact between Deputy District Attorney Tim Stoen, who is prosecuting the case, and another member of the 2003/04 grand jury. The other grand jury member was the only person responsible for maintaining the grand jury's file on the August case.

"I got an e-mail from Mr. Stoen apologizing for it and he agreed that he would follow normal protocol in the future," Schmidt said.

Rael also asked Schmidt to elaborate on previous testimony when she said she didn't trust Stoen. Schmidt said the distrust began when she received what she called poor legal advice in the beginning of the case and continued with the mishandling of the August file over the course of the investigation.

She gave examples, saying Stoen couldn't find a file when she went to his office once to make copies and another time he left the file in the grand jury office when he was supposed to take it.

"The information was not to be shared with anyone else in the District Attorney's Office," Schmidt said. "Bottom line, the promise to protect the sanctity of the grand jury records he promised us, as did Mr. (District Attorney Paul) Gallegos. I just did not feel I can trust him."

The last portion of Tuesday's proceeding centered on how many versions of the accusation Stoen and the grand jury had gone through.

Schmidt said there were four to five different versions, with the differences in some of the accusations being typographical.

When she began to be concerned about the accusation process, she attempted to get a copy of each version for her own files.

"I'm not sure if I got them all, but I attempted to," Schmidt said.

Schmidt is expected to return to the stand today.