One of Salzman's head cheerleaders, one of the Orks... Just looking at comparing the writing styles in each of his letters...
Especially this one:
Writer advises PALCO to stop allowing the pollution of rivers 2/2/2007
Dear Editor,
When you say Pacific Lumber Co. is living up to its end of the historic Headwaters agreement, I assume that includes Section 10.16 of the HCP Implementation Agreement (that’s the contract you signed), which specifically states “... notwithstanding any other provisions in this agreement, all activities undertaken pursuant to this agreement, the HCP, or the federal or state permits must be in compliance with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations ... .”
Thus, PALCO contracted to comply with all laws and regulations, which include, among many others, the Porter-Cologne Water Control Act. This law has nothing to do with logging per se, but rather protects our streams and water bodies from polluting discharges, such as silt and sediment, regardless of what activity causes the discharge.
So, what’s your complaint? If PALCO would just stop allowing excessive sediment to pollute our streams and rivers, you could harvest as much timber as the Department of Forestry would permit.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
(Editor’s note: This letter was originally sent to Andrea Arnot. It has been reproduced here with the author’s permission.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
This is more his style:
linkWriter would like to see more editorials on Moore inquest
9/14/2006
Dear Editor,
If it’s true that the only question Jager plans to present to the inquest jury is to determine which of the four allowed causes was responsible for Ms. Moore’s death, any moron, including me, can answer that for free.
— It was not accidental;
— it was not suicide;
— it was not by natural causes;
— therefore, it was by another’s hands other than accidental.
Then to say “they may also give recommendations about changes they think the police or mental health should pursue” is ridiculous. Recommendations from a proceeding that has no civil or criminal standing to begin with must be meaningless squared.
I’d like to see The Times-Standard and The Eureka Reporter do editorials on this whole ridiculous approach to answering the citizens’ question — was this a justified shooting or not? This is the question and it should have gone directly to the grand jury.
I hope that smell I’m getting isn’t a bucket of whitewash waiting to be spread over the entire incident.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
Salzman's talking points:
Dikeman not unanimously endorsed by local law enforcement
5/21/2006
Dear Editor,
(Christine Bensen-Messinger’s) article is incorrect when (it says) that Dikeman has been unanimously endorsed by all local law enforcement “agencies.” Not a single Police Department or the Sheriff has endorsed him. It’s the law enforcement labor unions that have endorsed him for their own political purposes, whatever they may be.
You do a disservice to your readers and falsely influence voters with gross errors like this in reporting endorsements.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
Benefit Assessment May Be Only The Alternative
by Cletus Isbell 7/27/04
(This is a letter sent to Humboldt Taxpayers’ League President Leo Sears and The Eureka Reporter.)
First, let me say that I will probably support the HFD No. 1 "assessment increase," since it appears that it is the only alternative available for needed funding, considering that the supervisors have denied the Prop. 172 funds which, in my opinion, were rightfully due the fire district.
I believe the Humboldt Taxpayers’ League's stated purpose is to both advocate and to inform. If you choose to not take an advocacy position on the benefit assessment, you should still support your mission statement by informing us taxpayers.
The HFD No. 1 public notice flyer is long on emotional appeals and woefully short on facts to let the taxpayers understand the full context of the benefit assessment. I would have expected the league to at least identify, if not fill, this void.
Incidentally, before I continue, let me object to the league’s directors being allowed to use the league forum in an attempt to influence the outcome by, according to The Eureka Reporter, stating to the press how they intend to personally vote. This is a cheap political ploy to influence the outcome without officially taking a position, as we saw numerous times in the recent attempt to recall the district attorney. I wouldn't expect such doublespeak from an organization such as the league.
The following statements and comments were derived primarily from the HFD No. 1 public-notice flyer and a short conversation with HFD No. 1 personnel. This is the kind of information I would expect the league to make sure that taxpayers are aware of so they can understand the overall context.
1. The benefit assessment was invented to circumvent the Prop. 13 property tax limits. Prior to 1985 HFD No. 1 was entirely supported from property taxes.
2. The proposed assessment "increase" is not an increase in the present $6/unit assessment to $12/unit; rather, it is an entirely separate new assessment. This means that, if it passes, the total benefit assessment will be $6 plus $12 or $18/unit.
3. The average single-family urban residence referred to in the HFD No. 1 flyer is assessed as four benefit units (rural single-family residences are six units) and has a property-tax-assessed value of $153,000.
4. Of the $188 that HFD No. 1 currently receives for the example single-family urban residence, $24 comes from the existing 1985 benefit assessment ($6/unit times four units) and the remaining $164 from regular property taxes.
5. If the proposed $12/unit assessment would yield $461,748 for fiscal year 2004/2005, as indicated in the flyer, then the present $6/unit can be expected to yield half that amount or $230,874.
6. If the $230,874 from the current $6/unit assessment provides 13 percent of the HFD No. 1 revenue, then total current revenue is $230,874 divided by 0.13 or $1,775,954.
7. If the proposed new additional benefit assessment of $12/unit passes, then the HFD No. 1 revenue will be the current $1,775,954 plus $461,748 for total fiscal-year 2004/2005 revenue of $2,237,702. Of this, $1,545,080 would be from property taxes and $692,622 from the two benefit assessments, which would total $18/unit.
The bottom line is that HFD No. 1, a community safety agency, which was funded from property taxes prior to Prop. 13, is now proposed to receive 31 percent of its funding from special "benefit assessments" and there is no limit on future additional assessments. I wonder what government agency will be next to attempt a "benefit assessment"?
All this leaves me with two additional related questions in my mind. If the supervisors are successful with their proposed 1 percent sales-tax increase, will any of these funds be allocated to HFD No. 1? If not, why not?
If you have any additional or corrected information on these issues, I would appreciate being made aware of it.
(Cletus Isbell is a Freshwater resident.)
(Following is Leo Sears’ response to Isbell’s letter.)
Dear Cletus Isbell,
The action item regarding HFD No. 1as it appeared on our July agenda was:
5. District assessments: Assigned to Jerry Partain for analysis and recommendation.
Both the Arcata and Humboldt fire districts will mail weighted ballots for increased property assessments.
Recommendation: To approve the motion that “The Humboldt Taxpayers’ League takes no position for or against the proposed increases in Arcata and Humboldt fire district assessments, because only the benefiting property owners will be voting by weighted ballot.”
Our meetings (and therefore the discussions that precedes a vote on a motion) are open to the public.
The media present included a reporter from The Eureka Reporter, who chose to report portions of a discussion wherein individual positions were voiced prior to a particular vote. Other media were also present and chose to report on other of the items on the agenda.
We did not issue a press release, and we have no control over what portions of our meeting the media chooses to report. However, to the best of my knowledge, all media coverage of that meeting was accurate.
As you so correctly stated, our mission statement says that we are "a watchdog organization to advocate for and inform the taxpayers.” In this instance we chose to inform the taxpayers that: “The Humboldt Taxpayers’ League takes no position for or against the proposed increases in Arcata and Humboldt fire district assessments, because only the benefiting property owners will be voting by weighted ballot.”
At some point in time we may make further statements regarding the district assessments. At present, our time is taken addressing other issues.
Our mission statement also says that "the league will not endorse political candidates" and they are never on our agenda – including the district attorney recall.
As to what the county will do if the 1 percent passes, I am sure your crystal ball is as good as ours.
Humboldt Taxpayers’ League
Leo Sears
president
9/22/04 Hard Data Missing From Discussion
by Cletus Isbel
The Headwaters Fund provides $22 million that is intended to make up for Humboldt County's loss in tax revenue; this is not "free" money, it's taxpayer funds.
I find it incomprehensible that the supervisors are permitting these funds to be spent as they are now while maintaining there is no money to patch the potholes in our roads. (Example – Why would the taxpayers knowingly give $25,000 of these funds to Johanna Rodoni's Buckeye Conservancy to study the permitting process? Has anyone read the conservancy’s mission statement for relevancy?)
According to Headwaters Fund Coordinator Tony Shen, as reported in a local news article, 67 jobs have been created so far for $3 million of these taxpayer funds, but they can't say exactly what the jobs are or how much they pay.
It should take him less than a week to personally determine what these jobs are and how much they pay. How about some hard data to go with all the self-promoting PR they pass out?
Why is it that all the people who make their living doing the planning seem to go out of their way to make sure there are no hard data available for the taxpayers to use in judging the results of the planning they are being paid to do?
I find it highly questionable that the county's "Prosperity! The North Coast Strategy" Web site has been taken off-line at the very time when taxpayers might want to read about it for themselves.
I believe that some of the statements currently being made by our officials and paid planners are not consistent with the data which were previously available on their own Web site. (Example – flight of our working youth.)
The thrust of the county's Prosperity! economic development plan is to "support existing enterprises, entrepreneurship and homegrown activities, as they are the best source of business expansion and local job growth."
By omission, this specifically rejects any effort to attract selected existing national level companies to locate facilities here.
I find this to be an unsupported and isolationist approach to the economic development needed for our particular situation. We need to get from an economy based on selling our timber and fish … to a sustainable economy based on the value added by our labor.
The county's present approach is like renting space under a Zippo billboard to protect us from the freezing rain while we wait for a "local entrepreneur" to discover fire and rationalizing that it's a good plan because we'll eventually get rich selling matches.
I believe it is our supervisors’ direct responsibility to manage the Headwaters Fund to ensure realistic near-term economic development in Humboldt County, not just to hire coordinators.
I think a fresh blank paper assessment may be required in order to get us refocused on what the real problem is – we need living-wage jobs and we need them now.
(Cletus Isbell is a Freshwater resident.)
12/6/04 Those who want Mills Act
should pay for it
Dear Editor,
I wholeheartedly support Humboldt County Supervisor John Woolley's opposition, as reported in the press, to Eureka’s plan to possibly adopt the Mills Act, without the consideration and concurrence of all Humboldt County voters.
County property tax matters must be administered at the county level – increases and decreases in available property tax funds impact all agencies and residents in the county.
The public should be informed, via the press, of the specific potential impact to each and every county agency and entity. This should be a total picture at the level of individual cities and county departments, such as the Sheriff's Office, district attorney, road maintenance, certainly the library, welfare programs, etc., with a grand total for the present year and a projection going out 10 years.
Eureka Councilman Chris Kerrigan is quoted in the Times-Standard as saying, “We certainly don't want to do something that would impact the budgets of other agencies.”
If this is a sincere statement on his part, he should make it a mandatory condition for any consideration of Eureka adopting the Mills Act.
A straightforward way to implement this would be for the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to reduce county tax fund allocations to the city of Eureka to fully offset the loss of property tax income due to the Mills Act.
In turn, this would ensure that the Eureka City Council gives proper consideration to the cost-benefit aspects of the Mills Act before adopting it.
If Councilman Kerrigan and the city of Eureka want the Mills Act, then they should pay for it.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
3/3/04 Are Some
Editors Deaf?
Dear Editor,
The election regarding the recall of District Attorney Paul Gallegos is over and 32,000 citizen voters (61 percent) have shouted their no verdict.
And yet, the editor of our major local newspaper doesn't seem to hear their voices at all.
In his post-election editorial, he devotes a paragraph to lecturing District Attorney Paul Gallegos on the need to "mend fences" with his false accusers. This is an affront to Gallegos and to the overwhelming majority of our voters.
And then to MAXXAM/Pacific Lumber, the instigator, on the $250,000 it pumped into the recall in hopes of hijacking our justice system and avoiding prosecution for major fraud, he says only "let's put this behind us." Unbelievable!
The fact that PALCO employs people and gives some money to charity does not justify or excuse this rogue corporation's blatant attempt to seize control of our justice system.
And he doesn't even mention the law-enforcement unions and their members who distorted facts and told half-truths and outright lies in their vain attempt to justify the recall.
He is correct that fences need to be mended so we can move forward. And the mending needs to be done by MAXXAM/PL, which instigated the recall and supplied the money, the law-enforcement unions and their members, who told the lies and lost their credibility in the process, and this dominant local newspaper, which seemed to amplify and publicize the entire sorry recall mess at every opportunity.
It's these three that need to mend fences, not Gallegos, and there are 32,000 of us who say so.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
2/16/05 Online article about water
board was incorrect
Dear Editor,
Your statement in the subject article that "The water board has jurisdiction over deciding how many THPs PALCO can execute" is factually incorrect. The water board has no jurisdiction over THPs.
Rather, the water board requires anyone discharging waste (sediment from logging operations in this case) into our creeks and rivers that may violate state water laws by impacting beneficial uses and by causing flood damage and destruction of property and homes to apply for and receive a waste discharge permit before proceeding.
This is true for PALCO's logging operations just as it would be for a dairy, a chemical plant, a pulp mill or anyone else. PALCO did not do this in a timely manner to support its own schedule, so any delay is solely its own fault.
The water board's responsibilities are, by law, different from and independent of CDF and the other agencies that are involved in THPs. These are not "duplicative regulations," to use PALCO President Robert Manne's favorite words – "different from and independent of" are the operative words here.
If PALCO was logging on flat land where its waste (sediment) wasn't being discharged into streams, the water board wouldn't be involved. But this isn't the case. PALCO is logging on steep, unstable slopes which results in large amounts of sediment being dumped into our streams every time it rains. This impacts the streams themselves and everyone and everything associated with them, including downstream residents who are suffering from flood damage to their homes and sediment buildup over their property.
Any delay PALCO is experiencing is due to its noncooperation in submitting required data to the water board in a timely manner to support its own desired schedules.
I request that your immediate correction of this factual error be as prominently displayed as the subject article which contained the error was.
This is a major issue in our community and your factual error is significantly contributing to the false information being circulated by PALCO, its officers and others with vested interests in supporting PALCO's false claims against the water board.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
2/9/04 Maxxam/PL Is
Definitely No PALCO
Dear Editor,
A jazzed-up logo and lots of TV time doesn't make a MAXXAM/PL into a PALCO or magically make it environmentally friendly.
Press releases by PL public-relations talking heads and testimonials from their present and former California Department of Forestry management buddies don't change facts.
They don't seem able to figure out that the best way to avoid being sued for fraud is allegedly to just not commit fraud. This is a cold-blooded predatory company that will never live up to the ethical, moral or legal standards of a PALCO.
PALCO would never have tried to shine up its image problem by slick advertising on TV, because it wouldn't have had a problem in the first place.
PL? Well, that's another story. Just watch them fumble and struggle and shake your head.
PALCO would never have promoted or supported the unwarranted attempt to recall an elected county official.
PL? Well, it has admitted, so far, to spending at least $70,000 in an attempt to unjustly recall District Attorney Paul Gallegos.
PALCO would never have abused its forests and streams, or nature's residents in them, or their downstream neighbors’ properties and homes.
PL? Well, its knowing destruction of these same forests, streams, critters and downstream private homes and properties in order to support Hurwitz's bond debt and profit plan is well documented. The question is what agency will stand up to the political and lobbying heat to stop it? Watch, it's close.
And old-time loggers? They knew and loved PALCO and they will tell you straight out, MAXXAM/PL is definitely no PALCO.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
2/2/04 Robert Manne’s Letter Shows
Pacific Lumber’s Doublespeak
In my opinion, Robert Manne's reported letter to the three candidates running to replace District Attorney Paul Gallegos if, and only if, he is recalled, has set a new gold standard for doublespeak. So far, he has been successful in getting a lot of free unearned positive publicity for himself and for The Pacific Lumber Co.
If Robert Manne, PL’s top executive, is sincere that "PALCO wants its day in court" to meet the fraud charges head-on in open court under oath, he can easily ensure that he will have that opportunity. All he has to do is withdraw the demurrer PL has filed in the case before Judge Christopher Wilson rules on it.
I don't believe this is what Manne wants at all. I think his writers have created for him what they think is a PL win-win situation with their clever doublespeak.
Consider PL's possible reaction to Judge Wilson's future ruling on the demurrer. If Judge Wilson grants the demurrer and dismisses the DA's fraud suite, Manne can say, “PL has been vindicated in court, as we knew we would.”
On the other hand, if Judge Wilson denies the demurrer and lets the DA's fraud suit against PL stand, Manne can say, “That's exactly what we wanted, a chance to disprove all the DA's fraud charges in open court.”
Isn't that clever? What other options does he have? And, as I said before, it’s getting Manne and PL a lot of free positive public-relations coverage. I guess that makes it double-clever doublespeak.
If Manne is sincere when he says that “PALCO wants its day in court" to fully answer the DA's charges under oath, he can guarantee that he will get it by simply withdrawing the demurrer before Judge Wilson rules on it. That way his “day in court” can't be taken away from him. I'm surprised his writers didn't think of this.
I think Manne's sincerity in making these statements is extremely questionable, at best. This is the same Manne who wrote the “character-assassination” letters to PL employees and retirees last fall that publicly insulted and demeaned the Humboldt County district attorney and his staff, all the residents of Freshwater and Elk River, EPIC, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the Humboldt Watershed Council, among others, and the same Pacific Lumber Co. that is almost totally funding the attempt to recall Paul Gallegos, our Humboldt County district attorney, in the March 2 election.
I think that was the real Manne speaking in the “character-assassination” letters -- not the one who wrote to the three candidates that "PALCO wants its day in court." The question of which exactly is the true Manne can easily be answered. Just ask him if he has withdrawn the demurrer -- yes or no?
I think his answer is vital information needed by the voters of Humboldt County in this final run-up to the district attorney recall election and I believe Manne and PL owe us a straight answer.
Has The Pacific Lumber Co. withdrawn the demurrer or has The Pacific Lumber Co. not withdrawn the demurrer? The voters anxiously await Manne's answer.
Cletus Isbell
Freshwater
9/22/04 Swifties Are Delusional;
Bush Gets F+
by Tim Crlenjak
Where were we, fellow polemicists? Oh, yeah, we’re fighting the Vietnam War all over again. Again and again until we learn.
Here’s why it still matters, 35 years later. The Swifties are delusional or suffering from amnesia. Of course, the vast majority of service personnel performed honorably. But the war was ill-conceived and unwarranted. And yes, atrocities happened.
Look at the similarities with the current conflict. LBJ was a macho, Texas politician. Is Bush Light a macho, Texas politician? Check. Have the obvious geopolitical and religious aspects been ignored in the rush to war? Check. Have facts been distorted or “cherry-picked” to justify war? Check. Has the intelligence community been pressured to provide support for war? Check.
Was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution a phony and trumped-up pretext for war like the Iraq War authorization? Check. Are the poor and middle class doing most of the killing, suffering and dying? Check.
Are the rich at least going to pay for the war, like ’Nam? No, they’re not! LBJ imposed a surtax to pay for Vietnam.
Bush and the Republican leadership have achieved an extraordinary level of cynicism and arrogance: tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, in a time of war; massive deficits to be paid for by a struggling middle class for generations to come. Great job, George W. Bush.
Draft-dodging is not the main issue, although the Bush record is egregious, even for the era. Many men of my generation realized that something was very wrong with the Vietnam War.
I could easily have made a different choice. Like Bush, I was a draft-dodger but joined the Navy. Blue-collar, steel-working Daddy was not connected. Like Kerry, my initial suspicions were confirmed. I understand that honorable people opted out of that war.
But Bush and his apocalyptic horsemen have no excuse. Any man today in his mid-50s who was an able-bodied youth and does not remember the sigh of relief when his too-many-babies deferment or school deferment came through, or his draft number was too high, ought to think a little harder.
That’s the issue here. Men who were young then, men who knew it was wrong, men who took a pass on that nightmare, have created another similar fiasco in their late maturity. It’s far more criminal than anything Clinton did; worse even than Nixon.
This flagrant few (they’re in the pew), this craven crew, it’s their due, they’ll forfeit you. Bush and his neo-con chicken hawks willfully and fraudulently deceived Congress and they are going to walk? Or even get elected (this time)? Where are the articles of impeachment?
Good things can be said about most presidents. Reagan? Sure. Bush the elder? Absolutely. Nixon? Yep. Even LBJ for civil rights and the environment.
But George W. Bush? Zip. Nothing. OK, he promotes physical fitness.
Bush is a loser on: Iraq and the war on terror; international diplomacy; the environment; health care; the economy; women’s issues.
And labor? When Bush talks “Family Leave and Flexibility Act,” it’s not blue-collar families that he’s thinking of, but his corporate “base” of overpaid executives.
Final grade: F+. Worst president ever.
Next time it gets even grimmer as we examine Bush’s attempt at Christianity, yet another failure! No flip-flopping here. At least he’s consistent. Can he hang on to his F+? See ya then, sports fans.
(Cletus Isbell is a Freshwater resident.)
Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 594 for cletus isbell. (0.09 seconds)
Loren Steffy: Sound Off: Pacific Lumber's bankruptcy
And Cletus Isbell is a supporter of the local DA who was trying to SUE palco. ... Posted by: Cletus Isbell at January 26, 2007 05:38 PM ...
blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/ 2007/01/sound_off_pacif_1.html - 47k - Cached - Similar pages
North Coast Journal - IN THE NEWS: August 4, 2005
Resident Cletus Isbell said that "every year, the flood gets higher and higher," and in 2002 the water invaded his house. The tour visited sites where Palco ...
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[PDF]
Item: 13 Subject: Petition for Reconsideration of Monitoring and ...
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On October 19, 2006, Cletus Isbell, a resident of Freshwater Creek, sent an email ... reconsideration from Mr. Cletus Isbell. Issues raised include the ...
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California Regional Water Quality Control Board
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to the State Water Board) and Mr. Cletus Isbell (October 30, 2006 action request. emailed to Executive Officer Catherine Kuhlman). ...
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Big Box Blog: Big box vs. local entrepreneurs
I want to thank my friend Cletus Isbell for furthering the discussion on big-box stores in his My Word of Dec. 23. I do, however, want to respectfully ...
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Public Endorsements for Paul Gallegos | VotePaul.org
Bob Huck Ken & Kay Humphry Cletus Isbell Eileen Isbell Nels Israelson Bill Jackson Kevin Jameson Erik Jansson Dr. James & Mrs. Laura Jaworski Jennifer Kalt ...
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Will of Julia Ann Flowers Forrester Craver
Annie Lou Isbell Coleman and Cletus Howard Isbell, and I direct that my executor ... sold until my youngest grandchild, Cletus Howard Isbell, shall become ...
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Elizabeth High School - Elizabeth, Illinois
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Lois Isbell. Leone Reed. Class of 1912. Ben Eade. Lyle Hood. Laura Price. Robert Weir ... Cletus Banworth. Merle Blewett. Harold Boettner. Twila Dittmar ...
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SJH Community Newsletter - Fall 2006
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Cletus and Eileen isbell. Andrew and marya Jensen. Peter and Jennifer Johnston. mike and mary Jordan. Dora Kaliamos. Kaplan–mcLaughlin–Diaz. Tracy Kaufman ...
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3.10.2007
TS - “Rape sentencing awaiting polygraph results”:
EUREKA — The four men who are accused of holding a woman in their Whitethorn home in March and repeatedly raping her entered guilty pleas to some charges Monday, but their exact sentences won’t be determined until after each are polygraphed.
Nate Robin Garza, 21, Levi Cole Garza, 21, Deshawn Lee Moore, 32, and Gregory Donald Scheider, 31, were arrested within a week of the crime being reported.
[Humboldt County] Deputy District Attorney Jeff Schwartz said the concerns of the victim was a “big factor” in his decision to offer the plea agreements.
”There’s was a lot of consultation with the rape victim,” Schwartz said.
The victim testified at the preliminary hearing, but didn’t want to go through recounting the crimes in public again, Schwartz said.
Depending on the results of the yet-to-be-scheduled lie detector tests and a judge’s decision, the sentences for Nate Garza, Moore and Scheider can be up to five years in prison.
If the results of the tests are not in the three men’s favor they will be sentenced on a rape in concert charge and be sentenced to five years. They will also have a strike on their record and have to register as sex offenders wherever they live for the rest of their lives.
If the results of the tests are in their favor, the men will be sentenced on a false imprisonment charge and a judge can sentence them up to three years in prison, Schwartz said.
Levi Garza can be sentenced on kidnapping, false imprisonment and a marijuana trafficking charge if the test is favorable for him. A judge will then determine his sentence, ranging from three to eight years.
If the test is not favorable for him, he will be sentenced to five years and eight months on a rape charge, have a strike on his record and have to register as a sex offender.
The four were held to answer to various charges after a preliminary hearing in April.
Levi Garza was held to answer to a kidnapping charge, rape and false imprisonment. His brother, Nate Garza, was held to answer to a kidnapping charge, attempted oral copulation, rape and sodomy.
Moore was held to answer to rape, attempted oral copulation and sodomy.
Scheider was held to answer to rape, sodomy and possession of a controlled substance.
The polygraph is being conducted by District Attorney Investigator Jim Dawson.
”Our office is very confident in Jim Dawson to do this,” Schwartz said. “Everyone will accept his results.”
Dawson is out of town until July 24, and the next hearing is scheduled for July 26. Schwartz said he doesn’t think the results of the tests will be ready by the court date but there is a possibility.
In 1998 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the decision to allow polygraphs as evidence is up to the individual judge.
A polygraph, or lie detector, measures the body’s involuntary responses to questions. Generally, the polygraph measures reactions from the respiratory, cardiovascular and sweat gland systems.
Update:
Sentencing continued in statutory rape trial 5/21/2007
Nate Robin Garza, 21, Levi Cole Garza, 21, Deshawn Lee Moore, 32, and Gregory Donald Scheider, 31, were arrested within a week of the crime being reported.
[Humboldt County] Deputy District Attorney Jeff Schwartz said the concerns of the victim was a “big factor” in his decision to offer the plea agreements.
”There’s was a lot of consultation with the rape victim,” Schwartz said.
The victim testified at the preliminary hearing, but didn’t want to go through recounting the crimes in public again, Schwartz said.
Depending on the results of the yet-to-be-scheduled lie detector tests and a judge’s decision, the sentences for Nate Garza, Moore and Scheider can be up to five years in prison.
If the results of the tests are not in the three men’s favor they will be sentenced on a rape in concert charge and be sentenced to five years. They will also have a strike on their record and have to register as sex offenders wherever they live for the rest of their lives.
If the results of the tests are in their favor, the men will be sentenced on a false imprisonment charge and a judge can sentence them up to three years in prison, Schwartz said.
Levi Garza can be sentenced on kidnapping, false imprisonment and a marijuana trafficking charge if the test is favorable for him. A judge will then determine his sentence, ranging from three to eight years.
If the test is not favorable for him, he will be sentenced to five years and eight months on a rape charge, have a strike on his record and have to register as a sex offender.
The four were held to answer to various charges after a preliminary hearing in April.
Levi Garza was held to answer to a kidnapping charge, rape and false imprisonment. His brother, Nate Garza, was held to answer to a kidnapping charge, attempted oral copulation, rape and sodomy.
Moore was held to answer to rape, attempted oral copulation and sodomy.
Scheider was held to answer to rape, sodomy and possession of a controlled substance.
The polygraph is being conducted by District Attorney Investigator Jim Dawson.
”Our office is very confident in Jim Dawson to do this,” Schwartz said. “Everyone will accept his results.”
Dawson is out of town until July 24, and the next hearing is scheduled for July 26. Schwartz said he doesn’t think the results of the tests will be ready by the court date but there is a possibility.
In 1998 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the decision to allow polygraphs as evidence is up to the individual judge.
A polygraph, or lie detector, measures the body’s involuntary responses to questions. Generally, the polygraph measures reactions from the respiratory, cardiovascular and sweat gland systems.
Update:
Sentencing continued in statutory rape trial 5/21/2007
Subject: Rape/Kidnap Arrests
Press Release Humboldt County Sheriff's Office
Date Released: 3/17/2006
Subject: Rape/Kidnap Arrests
Contact: Brenda Godsey, PIO
Case No#: 200601525
Released By: Brenda Godsey
Location: Redway/Whitethorn
Humboldt County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested three men in Southern Humboldt yesterday in connection with a kidnapping and rape that was reported on March 13, 2006. The investigation led to four suspects. One of the suspects was already in custody on unrelated matters.
Thursday morning, deputies from the Sheriff’s Garberville Station, Special Enforcement Team (SWAT), Criminal Investigation Division, and Drug Enforcement Unit were en route to serve a search warrant for this case at a residence on Gibson Creek Road in Whitethorn. As they were traveling, deputies saw driving past them, one of the suspects.
Deputies turned around and initiated a car stop. The driver, Levi Cole Garza, 21 of Whitethorn, pulled over and was taken into custody without incident.
At the same time, other deputies were watching a second suspect’s vehicle at a residence in Redway. The owner of the car, Nate Robin Garza, 21 of Whitethorn (and Levi’s brother) left the Redway residence and was stopped by deputies. He was also arrested without incident.
Deputies continued to the Garza brothers’ Whitethorn residence on Gibson Creek Road to serve the search warrant. Once there, deputies found a small indoor marijuana growing operation and several pounds of processed marijuana.
As the Whitethorn residence was being processed for evidence, deputies continued to look for the third outstanding suspect in the rape and kidnapping case.
Sheriff’s Deputies, who were on foot searching for the suspect, flagged down a car driving near the Garza residence. They found the third suspect, Gregory Donald Scheider, 31 of Whitethorn, riding inside the car. He was also taken into custody without incident.
In summary, the four suspects and their charges are as follows:
Levi Cole Garza: Kidnapping, Torture, Threatening with the intent to Terrorize.
Bail is $500,000
Nate Robin Garza: Kidnapping, Rape, Torture.
Bail: $500,000
Gregory Donald Scheider: Kidnapping, Rape, Torture, Sodomy.
Bail: $500,000
Deshawn Lee Moore (who was already in custody on unrelated charges): Kidnapping, Rape, Torture, Sodomy.
Bail: $500,000
All four men are expected to be arraigned on Monday. No other details regarding the sexual assault can be released due to the confidential nature of the case.
Update:
Sentencing continued in statutory rape trial 5/21/2007
Date Released: 3/17/2006
Subject: Rape/Kidnap Arrests
Contact: Brenda Godsey, PIO
Case No#: 200601525
Released By: Brenda Godsey
Location: Redway/Whitethorn
Humboldt County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested three men in Southern Humboldt yesterday in connection with a kidnapping and rape that was reported on March 13, 2006. The investigation led to four suspects. One of the suspects was already in custody on unrelated matters.
Thursday morning, deputies from the Sheriff’s Garberville Station, Special Enforcement Team (SWAT), Criminal Investigation Division, and Drug Enforcement Unit were en route to serve a search warrant for this case at a residence on Gibson Creek Road in Whitethorn. As they were traveling, deputies saw driving past them, one of the suspects.
Deputies turned around and initiated a car stop. The driver, Levi Cole Garza, 21 of Whitethorn, pulled over and was taken into custody without incident.
At the same time, other deputies were watching a second suspect’s vehicle at a residence in Redway. The owner of the car, Nate Robin Garza, 21 of Whitethorn (and Levi’s brother) left the Redway residence and was stopped by deputies. He was also arrested without incident.
Deputies continued to the Garza brothers’ Whitethorn residence on Gibson Creek Road to serve the search warrant. Once there, deputies found a small indoor marijuana growing operation and several pounds of processed marijuana.
As the Whitethorn residence was being processed for evidence, deputies continued to look for the third outstanding suspect in the rape and kidnapping case.
Sheriff’s Deputies, who were on foot searching for the suspect, flagged down a car driving near the Garza residence. They found the third suspect, Gregory Donald Scheider, 31 of Whitethorn, riding inside the car. He was also taken into custody without incident.
In summary, the four suspects and their charges are as follows:
Levi Cole Garza: Kidnapping, Torture, Threatening with the intent to Terrorize.
Bail is $500,000
Nate Robin Garza: Kidnapping, Rape, Torture.
Bail: $500,000
Gregory Donald Scheider: Kidnapping, Rape, Torture, Sodomy.
Bail: $500,000
Deshawn Lee Moore (who was already in custody on unrelated charges): Kidnapping, Rape, Torture, Sodomy.
Bail: $500,000
All four men are expected to be arraigned on Monday. No other details regarding the sexual assault can be released due to the confidential nature of the case.
Update:
Sentencing continued in statutory rape trial 5/21/2007
3.08.2007
ER - Two deputies leave DA's Office
Two deputies leave DA's Office
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 3/8/2007
After spending a collective time of a little more than five and a half years at the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office, Deputies Zach Bird and Jose Mendez are both leaving the office and the District Attorney Paul Gallegos is looking to fill their two positions.
Bird, who has worked in the Humboldt County DA’s Office since December 2002, has been hired by the Sacramento District Attorney’s Office.
Mendez, who has worked in the Humboldt County DA’s Office since January 2005, has been hired by the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office in Modesto.
Today is the last day for both men, who said they have enjoyed their time in Humboldt County and are looking forward to moving on.
“Though I feel that I’ve gained some great experience and important rewards (during) my time in Humboldt County, I am looking forward to the opportunities and experiences I believe await me in Modesto,” Mendez said. “I am also happy about being closer to family and an increase in salary.”
Bird echoed Mendez’s sentiments and said he and his wife, who recently graduated with a master’s degree in economics, think it will be a good move for them.
“It’s a lot closer to her family. There are a lot more opportunities down there,” he said. “(And) we are looking forward to being closer to a city.”
Bird said he has enjoyed his time in Humboldt County and learned a lot.
“It was a really good experience and I enjoyed working with law enforcement and the people in the office,” he said. “I’ve taken a lot from this position; being in a smaller office certainly afforded me the ability to do a lot more cases. I think (this move) will be a step up for my career as a prosecutor.”
Mendez said he is also grateful for his time in Humboldt County.
“I am proud of the strong friendships I’ve formed with my colleague Jeffrey Schwartz and former colleague Amanda Penny,” he said. “I am also grateful to Paul Gallegos for having given me the opportunity to begin my legal career here.”
He added that he is thankful to former Deputy District Attorney Worth Dikeman, former Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen and Assistant District Attorney Wes Keat for being “wonderful criminal attorney role models.”
Gallegos said he is sad to see both men leave.
“They will be missed,” he said in an e-mail to The Eureka Reporter. “Zach came into the office a little before me, so I have seen him grow into a fine prosecutor. I am happy for Sacramento and sad for us. However, I certainly understand his wife’s desire to be closer to family. Making more money helps, too. Jose will be missed, too. He is a dedicated prosecutor and a heck of an assistant soccer coach. I appreciate how, with much of his family serving overseas, he feels the need to be closer to home. I wish him and them well.”
Mendez said he has enjoyed living in Humboldt County.
“Ultimately, I do regret leaving behind a few friends, and I will recommend to anyone willing to listen to visit Humboldt County,” he said.
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
by Christine Bensen-Messinger, 3/8/2007
After spending a collective time of a little more than five and a half years at the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office, Deputies Zach Bird and Jose Mendez are both leaving the office and the District Attorney Paul Gallegos is looking to fill their two positions.
Bird, who has worked in the Humboldt County DA’s Office since December 2002, has been hired by the Sacramento District Attorney’s Office.
Mendez, who has worked in the Humboldt County DA’s Office since January 2005, has been hired by the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office in Modesto.
Today is the last day for both men, who said they have enjoyed their time in Humboldt County and are looking forward to moving on.
“Though I feel that I’ve gained some great experience and important rewards (during) my time in Humboldt County, I am looking forward to the opportunities and experiences I believe await me in Modesto,” Mendez said. “I am also happy about being closer to family and an increase in salary.”
Bird echoed Mendez’s sentiments and said he and his wife, who recently graduated with a master’s degree in economics, think it will be a good move for them.
“It’s a lot closer to her family. There are a lot more opportunities down there,” he said. “(And) we are looking forward to being closer to a city.”
Bird said he has enjoyed his time in Humboldt County and learned a lot.
“It was a really good experience and I enjoyed working with law enforcement and the people in the office,” he said. “I’ve taken a lot from this position; being in a smaller office certainly afforded me the ability to do a lot more cases. I think (this move) will be a step up for my career as a prosecutor.”
Mendez said he is also grateful for his time in Humboldt County.
“I am proud of the strong friendships I’ve formed with my colleague Jeffrey Schwartz and former colleague Amanda Penny,” he said. “I am also grateful to Paul Gallegos for having given me the opportunity to begin my legal career here.”
He added that he is thankful to former Deputy District Attorney Worth Dikeman, former Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen and Assistant District Attorney Wes Keat for being “wonderful criminal attorney role models.”
Gallegos said he is sad to see both men leave.
“They will be missed,” he said in an e-mail to The Eureka Reporter. “Zach came into the office a little before me, so I have seen him grow into a fine prosecutor. I am happy for Sacramento and sad for us. However, I certainly understand his wife’s desire to be closer to family. Making more money helps, too. Jose will be missed, too. He is a dedicated prosecutor and a heck of an assistant soccer coach. I appreciate how, with much of his family serving overseas, he feels the need to be closer to home. I wish him and them well.”
Mendez said he has enjoyed living in Humboldt County.
“Ultimately, I do regret leaving behind a few friends, and I will recommend to anyone willing to listen to visit Humboldt County,” he said.
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.
3.04.2007
Bay City News - Re-trial granted for Napoleon Brown murder conviction
Re-trial granted for Napoleon Brown murder conviction
By Adam Martin, Bay City News Service
March 11, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - Convicted robber Napoleon Brown appeared in San Francisco Superior Court today as lawyers in his case discussed a re-trial motion recently granted to him on his murder conviction.
Brown was found guilty in May of three counts of robbery, one count of carjacking and one count of murder for a June 2000 incident in which he and an accomplice robbed Johnny Rocket's restaurant on Chestnut Street.
After the robbery Brown, then 28, and Sala Thorn, then 24, allegedly carjacked 25-year-old Lenties White, pushing her out of the car on the Golden Gate Bridge, where she was fatally struck by a drunken driver.
Thorn was found not guilty of all charges except felony evading police.
After his conviction, Brown's lead attorney, Jeffrey Schwartz, went to work for the Humboldt County district attorney's office and a new lawyer, Marc Zilversmit, joined Brown's defense team along with David Wise, who had helped argue Brown's case in the trial.
On Feb. 27, Judge Jerome Benson granted their motion to re-try the murder case on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel.
"Since David was one of the trial lawyers it would have put him in a difficult position to argue that he or his fellow trial lawyer had been ineffective in the previous trial,'' Zilversmit said today.
Zilversmit and Wise filed a re-trial motion for all counts in November, Zilversmit said. That motion was denied in January but Benson later said he had some problems with the murder charge, Zilversmit said.
Wise, Zilversmit and prosecutor Robert Gordon filed points on the murder charge, Zilversmit said, and on Feb. 22 Wise and Zilversmit argued in court that Schwartz had not used every option in his arguments in Brown's defense.
They said Schwartz had failed to fully argue that the chain of causation had been broken in Brown's connection to White's death. Since White had been hit by a drunken driver, they argued, and since she had survived for a time while in the care of emergency personnel after being hit, Brown was not directly the cause of White's death.
Gordon argued that a representative from the California Highway Patrol had given testimony stating that even if the driver who hit White had been sober, the accident would have been unavoidable.
On Feb. 27, Benson granted Wise and Zilversmit's motion to re try the murder charge. The robbery and carjacking convictions remain.
Today Gordon said he had not decided whether to pursue the murder charge or drop it and let Brown be sentenced for his other crimes.
"The matter is still under consideration,'' he said.
Wise said today that even if the murder charge were dropped, Brown faces 20 to 40 years in prison for robbery and carjacking.
Copyright © 2006 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
By Adam Martin, Bay City News Service
March 11, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - Convicted robber Napoleon Brown appeared in San Francisco Superior Court today as lawyers in his case discussed a re-trial motion recently granted to him on his murder conviction.
Brown was found guilty in May of three counts of robbery, one count of carjacking and one count of murder for a June 2000 incident in which he and an accomplice robbed Johnny Rocket's restaurant on Chestnut Street.
After the robbery Brown, then 28, and Sala Thorn, then 24, allegedly carjacked 25-year-old Lenties White, pushing her out of the car on the Golden Gate Bridge, where she was fatally struck by a drunken driver.
Thorn was found not guilty of all charges except felony evading police.
After his conviction, Brown's lead attorney, Jeffrey Schwartz, went to work for the Humboldt County district attorney's office and a new lawyer, Marc Zilversmit, joined Brown's defense team along with David Wise, who had helped argue Brown's case in the trial.
On Feb. 27, Judge Jerome Benson granted their motion to re-try the murder case on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel.
"Since David was one of the trial lawyers it would have put him in a difficult position to argue that he or his fellow trial lawyer had been ineffective in the previous trial,'' Zilversmit said today.
Zilversmit and Wise filed a re-trial motion for all counts in November, Zilversmit said. That motion was denied in January but Benson later said he had some problems with the murder charge, Zilversmit said.
Wise, Zilversmit and prosecutor Robert Gordon filed points on the murder charge, Zilversmit said, and on Feb. 22 Wise and Zilversmit argued in court that Schwartz had not used every option in his arguments in Brown's defense.
They said Schwartz had failed to fully argue that the chain of causation had been broken in Brown's connection to White's death. Since White had been hit by a drunken driver, they argued, and since she had survived for a time while in the care of emergency personnel after being hit, Brown was not directly the cause of White's death.
Gordon argued that a representative from the California Highway Patrol had given testimony stating that even if the driver who hit White had been sober, the accident would have been unavoidable.
On Feb. 27, Benson granted Wise and Zilversmit's motion to re try the murder charge. The robbery and carjacking convictions remain.
Today Gordon said he had not decided whether to pursue the murder charge or drop it and let Brown be sentenced for his other crimes.
"The matter is still under consideration,'' he said.
Wise said today that even if the murder charge were dropped, Brown faces 20 to 40 years in prison for robbery and carjacking.
Copyright © 2006 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
3.02.2007
NCJ - Schectman sounds off on Dikeman, Hurwitz
Schectman sounds off on Dikeman, Hurwitz
by KEITH EASTHOUSE
Steve Schectman sat down with the Journal the day after last week's televised debate on the Gallegos recall. Speaking at his Arcata office, the environmental attorney expressed outrage at Pacific Lumber's financing of the recall effort. He also raised strong objections to the manner in which one of his competitors, replacement candidate Worth Dikeman, a deputy district attorney, is conducting his campaign.
Additionally, he displayed a detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the Maxxam corporation, which owns Pacific Lumber and is headed by notorious Texas financier Charles Hurwitz.
Schectman gained that knowledge in the late 1990s while litigating with Eureka attorney Bill Bertain a settlement on behalf of the residents of the town of Stafford, whose homes were buried in a debris torrent that roared off PL timberlands on New Year's Day 1997.
Among other things, Schectman talked about another Hurwitz company, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. The company, which was driven into bankruptcy in 2002, recently canceled medical and pension benefits for all its employees, union and nonunion, and retirees. The pension benefits are federally insured, but the medical benefits are not.
The Seattle Times, in an editorial, called the move "shameful."
"Under cover of bankruptcy law, a company is taking away benefits from its retired workers who already have earned them and who have no chance to earn them again."
Schectman did not say whether anything similar would happen at PL. But he did use it as an illustration of Hurwitz' ruthlessness.
NCJ: What do you mean when you say that it's clear Worth Dikeman's working with Pacific Lumber?
SS: It's clear that Dikeman is in a position, probably by choice, where he's come to the defense of Pacific Lumber. He believes Pacific Lumber needs protection. He's adopting their strategies. For instance, he has constantly hinted that I have an agenda, and that somehow if I was DA -- which I don't want to be because that would mean Paul [Gallegos] had been recalled -- I would be biased against PL. As if Dikeman's not biased against every criminal defendant he tries. The only bias I would have would be that of someone who's particularly equipped to unravel the web of deceit Maxxam has created to protect itself. Rather than worrying about Pacific Lumber attacking our democracy, having a negative impact on our job base here, he's concerned I would go after them. Here's a guy who's been a deputy district attorney here for 18 years -- you'd think he'd be affronted that a defendant in a case brought by the DA's office is funding a recall, paying for polls. It's unbelievably thuggish behavior, yet Dikeman's not offended by that. He's taken advantage of that. He and PL are at least in a symbiotic relationship, if not in a conspiratorial one.
NCJ: What about the "soft on crime" rap against Gallegos?
SS: [Dikeman made clear in last night's debate that] he believes, as does everyone that works in the office, that there's been no change in the prosecutorial zest or desire to put people away. It's not about crime, it's not about a crime wave, it's about Mr. Dikeman, along with Pacific Lumber, making a power grab.
NCJ: What is the larger significance of this recall election?
If the recall is successful, it will send what we call in law a chill on everyone's free speech. Politicians will be less likely to stand up and do courageous acts -- or the right act. You'll see less free market competition among some of the ancillary businesses related to the natural resources industry. And you'll see a general decline in decorum here. Whenever a bully wins there are consequences to be paid to those who would be bullied. Just like in a schoolyard, if the bully goes uncontained, the other kids will be afraid to go to school. They won't enjoy their experience as much. They will be deprived. And that's not that different from what we're facing here. And it's really sad to see that a guy like Mr. Dikeman, who's supposed to protect us from bullies, is backing bullies.
NCJ: Gallegos is getting second-guessed on everything he handles. Dikeman has been at the DA's office for a long time, has a long track record of handling cases. Anything controversial in his past?
SS: Well, it's no more controversial than Paul's record except it's magnified by the number of years he's been there. Paul has done nothing different than any competent DA would have done. Mr. Dikeman -- and the record bears this out -- has blown lots of cases. You can't try that many cases and be involved in litigation that long and not make some less-than-perfect decisions.
NCJ: Can you cite a couple of examples?
SS: I know he had three trials last year and lost two of them. I also know that [attorney] Ed Denson just won a preliminary hearing because Dikeman apparently called the defense witness in his case without realizing it, and that caused whoever was charged with the crime to be let free. I'm not saying Mr. Dikeman is incompetent. I'm just saying that the allegations that are being made against Paul can be made against anyone, maybe a lot more successfully. And that just goes to show the lie that the recall is based in any part on his being soft on crime.
NCJ: I've had the impression Dikeman is a particularly fierce prosecutor when it comes to medical marijuana cases.
SS: I did a [medical marijuana] case against Dikeman. [It had to do] with medical marijuana pioneer Bobby Gofort. What was particularly underhanded in that case was that in order to get Mr. Gofort to enter a plea bargain, Dikeman charged [Gofort's] wife, knowing full well that his wife had nothing to do with any of the charges that were pending against him. Throughout the proceedings it was always a squeeze maneuver [Dikeman] was doing, trying to make the husband fall on the sword to protect his wife. After we knocked out several charges at [a] preliminary hearing, we entered into a deal where Bobby did no jail time as he should not have done, and his wife, Denise Gofort [whom I represented], had all the charges against her dismissed. She was made to suffer for no reason other than that an overzealous prosecutor was looking to get a plea bargain. It wasn't like he wanted to charge her because he wanted to go to trial. He knew he would have lost.
NCJ: Do you believe Dikeman when he says that if he becomes DA he won't withdraw the PL suit?
SS: I don't think he'll file a dismissal. But there are all sorts of ways to let it die a slow, silent death.
NCJ: Like how?
SS: Like by not vigorously prosecuting it. Like by allowing various litigation maneuvers by Pacific Lumber to be successful. The thing he said last night that disturbed me the most was that it would be good for PL to have its day in court. Why would he say that? When I analyze that, the only thing I can think is that if he's DA, PL will win the case. That's the only thing good that can come of it for PL -- a loss cannot be good. [Usually a prosecutor] would say, "It's good a defendant is going to trial because I'm going to put them away." [Instead] he's saying I think it's good that they get exonerated. What kind of advocate is that? It's scary.
NCJ: Why are you running?
SS: I'm running because I feel offended that this recall is happening. It's really being funded and motivated by Pacific Lumber. And I know what kind of ruthless businessperson Charles Hurwitz is. And I know probably better than most people the corporate structure set up by Maxxam to take over Pacific Lumber, to take over Kaiser [Aluminum]. I know what he's done to the workers at Kaiser, how he's ruined over 3,000 families [in Washington, New Jersey and Louisiana] at Kaiser.
NCJ: What has he done at Kaiser?
SS: Hurwitz has made his living in large part by taking over entities that have some wealth, transferring that wealth through a series of corporations up to his Maxxam, which then transfers it to the Hurwitz family trust, leaving ruin in his wake. When he took over PL, the company was cash-rich, resources-rich and had no debt. There's more debt on PL today than the day he took over. But he used the value of PL to leverage a buyout of Kaiser Aluminum.
NCJ: Talk about the Stafford lawsuit.
SS: I saw that all the cases being brought here [regarding logging on PL land] were against [the California Department of Forestry]. I refused to get involved in that. I'm a bottom-line guy. I said, "Well, who's making money in all this? Follow the money." PL caused this landslide, no doubt about it. And they did it in conscious disregard for the probable dangerous consequences, which is another way of saying they should be held for punitive damages. Why were they [logging so recklessly]? Because of Hurwitz's plan to transfer all the wealth out of Humboldt County and into his pocket. And I wanted him to be liable. So I had to spend years unraveling his corporate structure, piercing the corporate veil, to find out who's really in charge and who's really benefiting. And in the process we learned all about Kaiser and the intermediate corporations, the entities in between, and we unraveled what his economic plan was. For instance, we clearly established that the reason why he lost his timber operating licenses in 1998 and 1999 [for repeated violations of logging regulations] was that he was trying to convince Wall Street to float these timber bonds, which had never been done before. Those were sold in August `98, just before the Headwaters deal became a public issue.
NCJ: I don't get the connection between the bonds and the logging.
SS: He needed to prove to Wall Street that he could get a harvest rate sufficient for them to underwrite the bonds for 30 years out. He sold approximately $1 billion worth of bonds. Actually, $980 million.
NCJ: Why did he want to do that?
SS: To get the cash. Here's his theory, generally speaking: "Give me the cash, you [bondholders] hold the leftovers, and maybe you get paid, maybe you don't. I don't care. I've got the money."
Anyway, he ratchets up the harvest rate in the run up to the [bond] offerings. Stafford was one of the first victims of that. They didn't even care what happened as a result of their irresponsible harvesting. All they cared about was that they got the bonds. Anything else in between was merely the cost of doing business. Hurwitz knew he had a venerable institution here [in Pacific Lumber] that could give him cover to do virtually whatever he wanted to transfer the wealth. So all of a sudden he has 200, 300 violations [of forest practice rules] in a year. We took a deposition of one of the [state forestry regulators]. He said it was like the Cold War, that they, the state, were like the U.S. and Hurwitz's people were like Russia. "They didn't do a thing we said," [the regulator told us]. That's what was going on.
Once the bonds were sold, Hurwitz has all the money from the trees in his pocket. He doesn't care if it operates at a loss. He just needs it to operate for a while, so that when [PL] does go bankrupt, they won't be able to pierce the bankruptcy and look to him for satisfaction.
NCJ: Who's "they?"
SS: The people who are holding the debt. He did the same thing to Kaiser only with different vehicles, but the same overall concept. Transfer the wealth out and into his pocket. Run the company dry, sell it.
By 1998 he sells the bonds. He's got a billion dollars, the money's upstream to him. He knows that. But he's entering into the negotiations for the Headwaters deal. And he can't enter a deal where the government limits the annual harvest to a rate less than Wall Street has already relied on.
NCJ: Say that again.
SS: When he negotiates the Headwaters deal, not only does he want to negotiate a great price [which he succeeds at -- $480 million]. But he has to negotiate an annual yield [of timber] based on [the state's] sustained yield plan and [the federal government's] habitat conservation plan. They are saying that, "We're only going to give you 136 million board feet." He says no deal, because if he does it, he will no longer have any protection from bankruptcy or anything else.
NCJ: Why?
SS: Because he's entered into a deal, which on its face doesn't meet the deal he made with Wall Street to sell the bonds. He has to have at least 180 million board feet for Wall Street. And he knows there's this science going on during the Headwaters negotiations that's saying the sustainable rate is only 136 million board feet. So all of a sudden this bogus plan comes out, this bogus study, the Jordan Creek study, which says, "Oh, guess what, we were wrong all these years -- it slides more on unharvested land than harvested land." It was bullshit, but the government said, "OK, you can get up to 176 million board feet." That's why he needed the false Jordan Creek study -- to give him the opportunity to ensure that he could get government approval to harvest at a rate consistent with his bonding. That's what the DA's case is really a spin-off of.
NCJ: So you've explained the financial reason for the deception that is at the heart of Gallegos' and [Assistant District Attorney] Tim Stoen's case. And what you're saying, basically, is that the only reason that matters under Hurwitz is a financial reason.
SS: Absolutely. He who has the gold rules, as Hurwitz told us right at the beginning.
NCJ: What does Kaiser tell us about what may happen with PL?
SS: The handwriting is on the wall that the resource base will be depleted before all the bonds can be serviced. He'll blame the environmentalists, he'll blame Paul Gallegos, he'll blame you and he'll blame me and he'll be laughing all the way to the Grand Cayman Islands.
NCJ: If he got his money in 1998 from the bonds and in 1999 from the Headwaters deal, why is he still around?
SS: Because he doesn't want a bankruptcy right now. [The operation is] running itself. Why go through the bankruptcy at this point unless he has to? He won't declare bankruptcy. He'll be forced into bankruptcy, like Kaiser was, by creditors.
NCJ: At what point will that happen?
SS: I'd have to look at the offerings again. But I would say within 10 years.
NCJ: And what would be the triggering mechanism?
SS: Failure to meet obligations to various debtors, primarily bondholders, which are primarily now various institutions, large investors.
NCJ: So they're holding the bag.
SS: Yeah, that's what he does. What happens is that if you have three creditors that aren't getting paid, they can petition, they can force you into bankruptcy and have the current ownership removed from the operation of the business. Then a receiver is put in place who will run the business to liquidate the debt for pennies on the dollar.
NCJ: So everyone gets some amount of money, but not nearly what
SS: Right. The only one who gets the full pay is Hurwitz.
NCJ: How has your knowledge about Maxxam, Hurwitz, Kaiser, PL, factored into your participation in the recall race?
SS: I find it reprehensible that someone who has already done so much harm to this county and the workers here, and to workers around the country, would take this bold move to try to bully the DA here simply because he thinks he can. Everyone has to admit, whether they like PL or not, that it's an incredibly in-your-face move to fund the recall.
NCJ: If Hurwitz has been bad for the county, why does PL seem to have so many supporters?
SS: Money. As the man said, he who has the gold rules. The workers are honest, hard-working people. They don't really understand the Wall Street kind of machinations that have occurred here. They just want to do their job, get paid, go home and enjoy life.
NCJ: If it's really Hurwitz who's been dividing the community, then PL's done a pretty good job of scapegoating the environmentalists.
SS: As I often said during the Stafford stuff, if Julia Butterfly Hill wasn't up in that tree, Hurwitz would have put her up there. It was perfect for him. He was able to start talking about how the environmentalists were messing with his ability to conduct business. Basically, he was able to misdirect the microscope from him to a target people in this community could understand, and one they felt threatened by. They're threatened by the counterculture young people coming up here and protesting. So they circled the wagons and said, "Protect your way of life."
NCJ: If you're elected, would you hire Paul Gallegos as your assistant district attorney?
SS: Sure.
by KEITH EASTHOUSE
Steve Schectman sat down with the Journal the day after last week's televised debate on the Gallegos recall. Speaking at his Arcata office, the environmental attorney expressed outrage at Pacific Lumber's financing of the recall effort. He also raised strong objections to the manner in which one of his competitors, replacement candidate Worth Dikeman, a deputy district attorney, is conducting his campaign.
Additionally, he displayed a detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the Maxxam corporation, which owns Pacific Lumber and is headed by notorious Texas financier Charles Hurwitz.
Schectman gained that knowledge in the late 1990s while litigating with Eureka attorney Bill Bertain a settlement on behalf of the residents of the town of Stafford, whose homes were buried in a debris torrent that roared off PL timberlands on New Year's Day 1997.
Among other things, Schectman talked about another Hurwitz company, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. The company, which was driven into bankruptcy in 2002, recently canceled medical and pension benefits for all its employees, union and nonunion, and retirees. The pension benefits are federally insured, but the medical benefits are not.
The Seattle Times, in an editorial, called the move "shameful."
"Under cover of bankruptcy law, a company is taking away benefits from its retired workers who already have earned them and who have no chance to earn them again."
Schectman did not say whether anything similar would happen at PL. But he did use it as an illustration of Hurwitz' ruthlessness.
NCJ: What do you mean when you say that it's clear Worth Dikeman's working with Pacific Lumber?
SS: It's clear that Dikeman is in a position, probably by choice, where he's come to the defense of Pacific Lumber. He believes Pacific Lumber needs protection. He's adopting their strategies. For instance, he has constantly hinted that I have an agenda, and that somehow if I was DA -- which I don't want to be because that would mean Paul [Gallegos] had been recalled -- I would be biased against PL. As if Dikeman's not biased against every criminal defendant he tries. The only bias I would have would be that of someone who's particularly equipped to unravel the web of deceit Maxxam has created to protect itself. Rather than worrying about Pacific Lumber attacking our democracy, having a negative impact on our job base here, he's concerned I would go after them. Here's a guy who's been a deputy district attorney here for 18 years -- you'd think he'd be affronted that a defendant in a case brought by the DA's office is funding a recall, paying for polls. It's unbelievably thuggish behavior, yet Dikeman's not offended by that. He's taken advantage of that. He and PL are at least in a symbiotic relationship, if not in a conspiratorial one.
NCJ: What about the "soft on crime" rap against Gallegos?
SS: [Dikeman made clear in last night's debate that] he believes, as does everyone that works in the office, that there's been no change in the prosecutorial zest or desire to put people away. It's not about crime, it's not about a crime wave, it's about Mr. Dikeman, along with Pacific Lumber, making a power grab.
NCJ: What is the larger significance of this recall election?
If the recall is successful, it will send what we call in law a chill on everyone's free speech. Politicians will be less likely to stand up and do courageous acts -- or the right act. You'll see less free market competition among some of the ancillary businesses related to the natural resources industry. And you'll see a general decline in decorum here. Whenever a bully wins there are consequences to be paid to those who would be bullied. Just like in a schoolyard, if the bully goes uncontained, the other kids will be afraid to go to school. They won't enjoy their experience as much. They will be deprived. And that's not that different from what we're facing here. And it's really sad to see that a guy like Mr. Dikeman, who's supposed to protect us from bullies, is backing bullies.
NCJ: Gallegos is getting second-guessed on everything he handles. Dikeman has been at the DA's office for a long time, has a long track record of handling cases. Anything controversial in his past?
SS: Well, it's no more controversial than Paul's record except it's magnified by the number of years he's been there. Paul has done nothing different than any competent DA would have done. Mr. Dikeman -- and the record bears this out -- has blown lots of cases. You can't try that many cases and be involved in litigation that long and not make some less-than-perfect decisions.
NCJ: Can you cite a couple of examples?
SS: I know he had three trials last year and lost two of them. I also know that [attorney] Ed Denson just won a preliminary hearing because Dikeman apparently called the defense witness in his case without realizing it, and that caused whoever was charged with the crime to be let free. I'm not saying Mr. Dikeman is incompetent. I'm just saying that the allegations that are being made against Paul can be made against anyone, maybe a lot more successfully. And that just goes to show the lie that the recall is based in any part on his being soft on crime.
NCJ: I've had the impression Dikeman is a particularly fierce prosecutor when it comes to medical marijuana cases.
SS: I did a [medical marijuana] case against Dikeman. [It had to do] with medical marijuana pioneer Bobby Gofort. What was particularly underhanded in that case was that in order to get Mr. Gofort to enter a plea bargain, Dikeman charged [Gofort's] wife, knowing full well that his wife had nothing to do with any of the charges that were pending against him. Throughout the proceedings it was always a squeeze maneuver [Dikeman] was doing, trying to make the husband fall on the sword to protect his wife. After we knocked out several charges at [a] preliminary hearing, we entered into a deal where Bobby did no jail time as he should not have done, and his wife, Denise Gofort [whom I represented], had all the charges against her dismissed. She was made to suffer for no reason other than that an overzealous prosecutor was looking to get a plea bargain. It wasn't like he wanted to charge her because he wanted to go to trial. He knew he would have lost.
NCJ: Do you believe Dikeman when he says that if he becomes DA he won't withdraw the PL suit?
SS: I don't think he'll file a dismissal. But there are all sorts of ways to let it die a slow, silent death.
NCJ: Like how?
SS: Like by not vigorously prosecuting it. Like by allowing various litigation maneuvers by Pacific Lumber to be successful. The thing he said last night that disturbed me the most was that it would be good for PL to have its day in court. Why would he say that? When I analyze that, the only thing I can think is that if he's DA, PL will win the case. That's the only thing good that can come of it for PL -- a loss cannot be good. [Usually a prosecutor] would say, "It's good a defendant is going to trial because I'm going to put them away." [Instead] he's saying I think it's good that they get exonerated. What kind of advocate is that? It's scary.
NCJ: Why are you running?
SS: I'm running because I feel offended that this recall is happening. It's really being funded and motivated by Pacific Lumber. And I know what kind of ruthless businessperson Charles Hurwitz is. And I know probably better than most people the corporate structure set up by Maxxam to take over Pacific Lumber, to take over Kaiser [Aluminum]. I know what he's done to the workers at Kaiser, how he's ruined over 3,000 families [in Washington, New Jersey and Louisiana] at Kaiser.
NCJ: What has he done at Kaiser?
SS: Hurwitz has made his living in large part by taking over entities that have some wealth, transferring that wealth through a series of corporations up to his Maxxam, which then transfers it to the Hurwitz family trust, leaving ruin in his wake. When he took over PL, the company was cash-rich, resources-rich and had no debt. There's more debt on PL today than the day he took over. But he used the value of PL to leverage a buyout of Kaiser Aluminum.
NCJ: Talk about the Stafford lawsuit.
SS: I saw that all the cases being brought here [regarding logging on PL land] were against [the California Department of Forestry]. I refused to get involved in that. I'm a bottom-line guy. I said, "Well, who's making money in all this? Follow the money." PL caused this landslide, no doubt about it. And they did it in conscious disregard for the probable dangerous consequences, which is another way of saying they should be held for punitive damages. Why were they [logging so recklessly]? Because of Hurwitz's plan to transfer all the wealth out of Humboldt County and into his pocket. And I wanted him to be liable. So I had to spend years unraveling his corporate structure, piercing the corporate veil, to find out who's really in charge and who's really benefiting. And in the process we learned all about Kaiser and the intermediate corporations, the entities in between, and we unraveled what his economic plan was. For instance, we clearly established that the reason why he lost his timber operating licenses in 1998 and 1999 [for repeated violations of logging regulations] was that he was trying to convince Wall Street to float these timber bonds, which had never been done before. Those were sold in August `98, just before the Headwaters deal became a public issue.
NCJ: I don't get the connection between the bonds and the logging.
SS: He needed to prove to Wall Street that he could get a harvest rate sufficient for them to underwrite the bonds for 30 years out. He sold approximately $1 billion worth of bonds. Actually, $980 million.
NCJ: Why did he want to do that?
SS: To get the cash. Here's his theory, generally speaking: "Give me the cash, you [bondholders] hold the leftovers, and maybe you get paid, maybe you don't. I don't care. I've got the money."
Anyway, he ratchets up the harvest rate in the run up to the [bond] offerings. Stafford was one of the first victims of that. They didn't even care what happened as a result of their irresponsible harvesting. All they cared about was that they got the bonds. Anything else in between was merely the cost of doing business. Hurwitz knew he had a venerable institution here [in Pacific Lumber] that could give him cover to do virtually whatever he wanted to transfer the wealth. So all of a sudden he has 200, 300 violations [of forest practice rules] in a year. We took a deposition of one of the [state forestry regulators]. He said it was like the Cold War, that they, the state, were like the U.S. and Hurwitz's people were like Russia. "They didn't do a thing we said," [the regulator told us]. That's what was going on.
Once the bonds were sold, Hurwitz has all the money from the trees in his pocket. He doesn't care if it operates at a loss. He just needs it to operate for a while, so that when [PL] does go bankrupt, they won't be able to pierce the bankruptcy and look to him for satisfaction.
NCJ: Who's "they?"
SS: The people who are holding the debt. He did the same thing to Kaiser only with different vehicles, but the same overall concept. Transfer the wealth out and into his pocket. Run the company dry, sell it.
By 1998 he sells the bonds. He's got a billion dollars, the money's upstream to him. He knows that. But he's entering into the negotiations for the Headwaters deal. And he can't enter a deal where the government limits the annual harvest to a rate less than Wall Street has already relied on.
NCJ: Say that again.
SS: When he negotiates the Headwaters deal, not only does he want to negotiate a great price [which he succeeds at -- $480 million]. But he has to negotiate an annual yield [of timber] based on [the state's] sustained yield plan and [the federal government's] habitat conservation plan. They are saying that, "We're only going to give you 136 million board feet." He says no deal, because if he does it, he will no longer have any protection from bankruptcy or anything else.
NCJ: Why?
SS: Because he's entered into a deal, which on its face doesn't meet the deal he made with Wall Street to sell the bonds. He has to have at least 180 million board feet for Wall Street. And he knows there's this science going on during the Headwaters negotiations that's saying the sustainable rate is only 136 million board feet. So all of a sudden this bogus plan comes out, this bogus study, the Jordan Creek study, which says, "Oh, guess what, we were wrong all these years -- it slides more on unharvested land than harvested land." It was bullshit, but the government said, "OK, you can get up to 176 million board feet." That's why he needed the false Jordan Creek study -- to give him the opportunity to ensure that he could get government approval to harvest at a rate consistent with his bonding. That's what the DA's case is really a spin-off of.
NCJ: So you've explained the financial reason for the deception that is at the heart of Gallegos' and [Assistant District Attorney] Tim Stoen's case. And what you're saying, basically, is that the only reason that matters under Hurwitz is a financial reason.
SS: Absolutely. He who has the gold rules, as Hurwitz told us right at the beginning.
NCJ: What does Kaiser tell us about what may happen with PL?
SS: The handwriting is on the wall that the resource base will be depleted before all the bonds can be serviced. He'll blame the environmentalists, he'll blame Paul Gallegos, he'll blame you and he'll blame me and he'll be laughing all the way to the Grand Cayman Islands.
NCJ: If he got his money in 1998 from the bonds and in 1999 from the Headwaters deal, why is he still around?
SS: Because he doesn't want a bankruptcy right now. [The operation is] running itself. Why go through the bankruptcy at this point unless he has to? He won't declare bankruptcy. He'll be forced into bankruptcy, like Kaiser was, by creditors.
NCJ: At what point will that happen?
SS: I'd have to look at the offerings again. But I would say within 10 years.
NCJ: And what would be the triggering mechanism?
SS: Failure to meet obligations to various debtors, primarily bondholders, which are primarily now various institutions, large investors.
NCJ: So they're holding the bag.
SS: Yeah, that's what he does. What happens is that if you have three creditors that aren't getting paid, they can petition, they can force you into bankruptcy and have the current ownership removed from the operation of the business. Then a receiver is put in place who will run the business to liquidate the debt for pennies on the dollar.
NCJ: So everyone gets some amount of money, but not nearly what
SS: Right. The only one who gets the full pay is Hurwitz.
NCJ: How has your knowledge about Maxxam, Hurwitz, Kaiser, PL, factored into your participation in the recall race?
SS: I find it reprehensible that someone who has already done so much harm to this county and the workers here, and to workers around the country, would take this bold move to try to bully the DA here simply because he thinks he can. Everyone has to admit, whether they like PL or not, that it's an incredibly in-your-face move to fund the recall.
NCJ: If Hurwitz has been bad for the county, why does PL seem to have so many supporters?
SS: Money. As the man said, he who has the gold rules. The workers are honest, hard-working people. They don't really understand the Wall Street kind of machinations that have occurred here. They just want to do their job, get paid, go home and enjoy life.
NCJ: If it's really Hurwitz who's been dividing the community, then PL's done a pretty good job of scapegoating the environmentalists.
SS: As I often said during the Stafford stuff, if Julia Butterfly Hill wasn't up in that tree, Hurwitz would have put her up there. It was perfect for him. He was able to start talking about how the environmentalists were messing with his ability to conduct business. Basically, he was able to misdirect the microscope from him to a target people in this community could understand, and one they felt threatened by. They're threatened by the counterculture young people coming up here and protesting. So they circled the wagons and said, "Protect your way of life."
NCJ: If you're elected, would you hire Paul Gallegos as your assistant district attorney?
SS: Sure.
Steven Schectman
LEGALLY RIVETED
Spokesman Review, The (Spokane), Jun 27, 1999 by Julie Sullivan Staff writer
Steven Schectman's law firm handles suits from wrongful deaths to environmental disasters. But no matter what the case or who the client, the defendant is always the same:
Charles Hurwitz.
The head of Maxxam Inc., which owns a controlling interest in Kaiser Aluminum, is the sole target of a small but busy Northern California law firm. After 20 years of suing landlords, governments and other attorneys, Schectman's aim is "piercing the corporate veil" of Hurwitz's Maxxam and its more than 110 subsidiaries. His firm represents more than 65 people in five state and federal suits against Maxxam. Last week, Schectman won the right to depose two Kaiser executives in one of the cases against Pacific Lumber Co. The suit alleges that Pacific's logging practices caused massive landslides that swept away seven homes and damaged another eight in Stafford, Calif., and in another instance, destroyed the Elk River watershed. Schectman hopes the Kaiser depositions unravel a complex corporate structure that he claims was created to shield Hurwitz from liability. It was in another deposition in the case, with Pacific Lumber head John Campbell, that Schectman discovered more than 30 laid-off Pacific Lumber employees had been sent to Spokane to cross the Kaiser picket line after the Sept. 30 strike by the United Steelworkers. The Steelworkers allege such third-party hiring breaks state law. The Washington State Patrol is investigating. Schectman says the takeover of the California timber company and Kaiser, and their respective problems with the environment and labor, are the result of calculated corporate policies by Hurwitz, whom he calls a "predatory capitalist." Hurwitz takes over companies, drains their wealth and moves on, leaving investors, employees and communities behind, the attorney claims. "Maxxam is one of the corporations in America that most operates on the edge, if not the outside, of the law," he charges. "It's important Hurwitz be exposed and brought into the family of legally compliant corporations." Representatives for Kaiser and Maxxam say Schectman is a nuisance - an opportunist driven by the Steelworkers, who have been locked out of Kaiser plants since Jan. 14. They note that the Steelworkers had no problem with Hurwitz owning Kaiser in the 10 years prior to the dispute. The suit against Pacific Lumber has "zero connection" to Kaiser, and Kaiser has nothing to do with operations at Pacific Lumber, says Kaiser spokesman Scott Lamb. "This whole effort is to connect the dots where they don't connect," Lamb says. "This does absolutely nothing to advance the process toward a new labor agreement." Maxxam spokesman Joshua Reiss places Schectman among a cadre of trial lawyers nationwide who believe they can reap huge benefits by suing large corporations. "The allegation that (Hurwitz) is the one behind the scenes ultimately making the decisions is on its face inaccurate," Reiss says. "It's just not true." Schectman said he is not receiving any pay or travel expenses from the union. He was in Spokane last week to lend support and learn as much about Kaiser as possible. "I am going to college and graduate school on Maxxam," says the 46-year-old attorney. "My office will be the place outside Maxxam that knows the most about Maxxam, and we will be able to disassemble this entity." To 200 Spokane Steelworkers rallying at the Trentwood rolling mill gate Thursday, he was more direct. "Hurwitz is the enemy," he said. A legal bulldog "Have you seen `A Civil Action'?" San Francisco attorney Frances Pinnock asks. "That's Steven." The best-selling book and movie centers on a case brought by Jan Schlichtmann, the idealistic personal injury lawyer whose life was consumed by a suit over contaminated drinking water in East Woburn, Mass. Pinnock says her former law partner is a West Coast version of that character, a "bulldog" who'd sooner lose his law practice than quit. Schectman grew up in a two-story flat on Chicago's north side. His immigrant grandparents, Russian Jews who spoke no English, lived downstairs. His parents sold industrial staples out of the basement. Schectman earned a degree in experimental psychology at Drake University before traveling to California to begin what would be a career of activism. He worked on Tom Hayden's failed bid for the U.S. Senate, enrolled in law school in San Francisco and worked with the United Farm Workers on housing issues. At the beginning of his second year of legal studies, he met Berkeley civil rights attorney Len Holt and left school to become an apprentice. He tried his first case a week after passing the California Bar in 1980. He has since trained five other apprentices. Today, there are six apprentices in the Pacific Law office in Eureka, where he works with two other attorneys and a retired judge. But before he even took the bar exam, Schectman co-founded the Eviction Defense Center in San Francisco, helping 40 to 50 people represent themselves against landlords. Among his legal victories: a $4.3 million settlement for the wrongful eviction of 23 elderly hotel tenants. He says that in the process of trying that case, he learned how economics drives unlawful conduct. "Follow the money" soon became an official strategy, as did the outrageousness of some of Schectman's tactics. When he sued a famous San Francisco restaurant for firing a waiter because he had AIDS, Schectman organized members of the radical group ACTUP to demonstrate outside the restaurant and target patrons. The client won $30,000 but died within two weeks. When Schectman took on one of California's oldest and most prestigious law firms - Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro - for discriminating against aging secretaries, he had the older women standing on street corners handing out inflammatory leaflets. The women were terrified, he says, and the button-down firm horrified, but it was vintage Schectman. "I represent powerless people and powerless people need to experience their own power," he says. Such acts also pressure defendants to resolve the case. "People dislike me. But my job is to be disliked by the opposition. This isn't a job to me. It's who I am." During the battle, the Pillsbury attorneys countersued, saying Schectman had used documents carried out of the law firm by the former employees. Schectman lost that round and the case dragged on for months. "The case destroyed our law firm," Pinnock says. "We actually had no money. His wife was selling her jewelry." The former partners are still involved in a dispute over the collapse of the firm. But Schectman held out, completely broke, for nearly six months before winning a $4.8 million settlement for the secretaries. He and his wife toyed with going to the beach for a year with their two children. Instead, they ended up in Humboldt County, where they often camped and where he became increasingly aware of a former Pillsbury client, Charles Hurwitz. Today, from a rented Victorian, Schectman works with environmentalists and other activists, studying Hurwitz. He doesn't own his own home or office and he drives a van. Yet he's taking on a man who is No. 156 on the Fortune 500 in control of a billion-dollar conglomerate. It's a position he's used to. "We're not making cases happen," he says. "All we have to do is sit back, do our work and his victims find us."
Spokesman Review, The (Spokane)
The Spokesman Review is Spokane, Washington's over-100-year-old newspaper, and features local coverage of news, business, sports and entertainment.
Spokesman Review, The (Spokane), Jun 27, 1999 by Julie Sullivan Staff writer
Steven Schectman's law firm handles suits from wrongful deaths to environmental disasters. But no matter what the case or who the client, the defendant is always the same:
Charles Hurwitz.
The head of Maxxam Inc., which owns a controlling interest in Kaiser Aluminum, is the sole target of a small but busy Northern California law firm. After 20 years of suing landlords, governments and other attorneys, Schectman's aim is "piercing the corporate veil" of Hurwitz's Maxxam and its more than 110 subsidiaries. His firm represents more than 65 people in five state and federal suits against Maxxam. Last week, Schectman won the right to depose two Kaiser executives in one of the cases against Pacific Lumber Co. The suit alleges that Pacific's logging practices caused massive landslides that swept away seven homes and damaged another eight in Stafford, Calif., and in another instance, destroyed the Elk River watershed. Schectman hopes the Kaiser depositions unravel a complex corporate structure that he claims was created to shield Hurwitz from liability. It was in another deposition in the case, with Pacific Lumber head John Campbell, that Schectman discovered more than 30 laid-off Pacific Lumber employees had been sent to Spokane to cross the Kaiser picket line after the Sept. 30 strike by the United Steelworkers. The Steelworkers allege such third-party hiring breaks state law. The Washington State Patrol is investigating. Schectman says the takeover of the California timber company and Kaiser, and their respective problems with the environment and labor, are the result of calculated corporate policies by Hurwitz, whom he calls a "predatory capitalist." Hurwitz takes over companies, drains their wealth and moves on, leaving investors, employees and communities behind, the attorney claims. "Maxxam is one of the corporations in America that most operates on the edge, if not the outside, of the law," he charges. "It's important Hurwitz be exposed and brought into the family of legally compliant corporations." Representatives for Kaiser and Maxxam say Schectman is a nuisance - an opportunist driven by the Steelworkers, who have been locked out of Kaiser plants since Jan. 14. They note that the Steelworkers had no problem with Hurwitz owning Kaiser in the 10 years prior to the dispute. The suit against Pacific Lumber has "zero connection" to Kaiser, and Kaiser has nothing to do with operations at Pacific Lumber, says Kaiser spokesman Scott Lamb. "This whole effort is to connect the dots where they don't connect," Lamb says. "This does absolutely nothing to advance the process toward a new labor agreement." Maxxam spokesman Joshua Reiss places Schectman among a cadre of trial lawyers nationwide who believe they can reap huge benefits by suing large corporations. "The allegation that (Hurwitz) is the one behind the scenes ultimately making the decisions is on its face inaccurate," Reiss says. "It's just not true." Schectman said he is not receiving any pay or travel expenses from the union. He was in Spokane last week to lend support and learn as much about Kaiser as possible. "I am going to college and graduate school on Maxxam," says the 46-year-old attorney. "My office will be the place outside Maxxam that knows the most about Maxxam, and we will be able to disassemble this entity." To 200 Spokane Steelworkers rallying at the Trentwood rolling mill gate Thursday, he was more direct. "Hurwitz is the enemy," he said. A legal bulldog "Have you seen `A Civil Action'?" San Francisco attorney Frances Pinnock asks. "That's Steven." The best-selling book and movie centers on a case brought by Jan Schlichtmann, the idealistic personal injury lawyer whose life was consumed by a suit over contaminated drinking water in East Woburn, Mass. Pinnock says her former law partner is a West Coast version of that character, a "bulldog" who'd sooner lose his law practice than quit. Schectman grew up in a two-story flat on Chicago's north side. His immigrant grandparents, Russian Jews who spoke no English, lived downstairs. His parents sold industrial staples out of the basement. Schectman earned a degree in experimental psychology at Drake University before traveling to California to begin what would be a career of activism. He worked on Tom Hayden's failed bid for the U.S. Senate, enrolled in law school in San Francisco and worked with the United Farm Workers on housing issues. At the beginning of his second year of legal studies, he met Berkeley civil rights attorney Len Holt and left school to become an apprentice. He tried his first case a week after passing the California Bar in 1980. He has since trained five other apprentices. Today, there are six apprentices in the Pacific Law office in Eureka, where he works with two other attorneys and a retired judge. But before he even took the bar exam, Schectman co-founded the Eviction Defense Center in San Francisco, helping 40 to 50 people represent themselves against landlords. Among his legal victories: a $4.3 million settlement for the wrongful eviction of 23 elderly hotel tenants. He says that in the process of trying that case, he learned how economics drives unlawful conduct. "Follow the money" soon became an official strategy, as did the outrageousness of some of Schectman's tactics. When he sued a famous San Francisco restaurant for firing a waiter because he had AIDS, Schectman organized members of the radical group ACTUP to demonstrate outside the restaurant and target patrons. The client won $30,000 but died within two weeks. When Schectman took on one of California's oldest and most prestigious law firms - Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro - for discriminating against aging secretaries, he had the older women standing on street corners handing out inflammatory leaflets. The women were terrified, he says, and the button-down firm horrified, but it was vintage Schectman. "I represent powerless people and powerless people need to experience their own power," he says. Such acts also pressure defendants to resolve the case. "People dislike me. But my job is to be disliked by the opposition. This isn't a job to me. It's who I am." During the battle, the Pillsbury attorneys countersued, saying Schectman had used documents carried out of the law firm by the former employees. Schectman lost that round and the case dragged on for months. "The case destroyed our law firm," Pinnock says. "We actually had no money. His wife was selling her jewelry." The former partners are still involved in a dispute over the collapse of the firm. But Schectman held out, completely broke, for nearly six months before winning a $4.8 million settlement for the secretaries. He and his wife toyed with going to the beach for a year with their two children. Instead, they ended up in Humboldt County, where they often camped and where he became increasingly aware of a former Pillsbury client, Charles Hurwitz. Today, from a rented Victorian, Schectman works with environmentalists and other activists, studying Hurwitz. He doesn't own his own home or office and he drives a van. Yet he's taking on a man who is No. 156 on the Fortune 500 in control of a billion-dollar conglomerate. It's a position he's used to. "We're not making cases happen," he says. "All we have to do is sit back, do our work and his victims find us."
Spokesman Review, The (Spokane)
The Spokesman Review is Spokane, Washington's over-100-year-old newspaper, and features local coverage of news, business, sports and entertainment.