Calexico, plaintiffs
reach settlement in lawsuits
C
ALEXICO — Two lawsuits that had alleged the city and its Police Department had engaged in job retaliation and discrimination have recently been settled by the city’s former insurance provider for a combined total of about $2 million.
The settlements, which stemmed from a county Superior Court lawsuit filed by two current police officers, as well as a federal lawsuit brought by current and former employees of the Police and Public Works departments, were reportedly approved by the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority.
The $1.1 million federal lawsuit settlement was reportedly approved by JPIA in March against the wishes of the city, which did not have any involvement in the JPIA’s decision and which continues to deny any allegations of misconduct, said City Manager Armando Villa.
“The city has made its objections known to the JPIA and continues to object to anything short of proceeding to trial on the merits of plaintiffs’ allegations,” Villa said in a written statement.
Whether the city raised the same objections with JPIA regarding the local Superior Court case settlement that resulted in two separate payouts of $475,000 and $375,000 to two current police officers remains unclear, since Villa declined to provide specifics for that particular case.
Payments associated with the federal and local lawsuit settlements will be made by the JPIA and not the city’s general fund, he stated.
The federal lawsuit settlement
The $1.1 million settlement stemmed from a federal lawsuit filed in May 2016 by former police chief Michael Bostic, former Public Works director Nick Servin, as well as Lt. Gonzalo Gerardo and executive assistant Martha Gomez, who both currently remain employed by the city.
The lawsuit alleged all four had been the target of job retaliation after they individually began to report possible criminal activities in the police and public works departments to local and federal law enforcement agencies in late 2013.
The settlement would have likely been higher had the case proceeded to trial, said plaintiffs’ attorney Bradley Gage, of Woodland Hills-based Goldberg and Gage.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California case was settled after attorneys for JPIA had the opportunity to review investigation files, interviews and other evidence related to the allegations, Gage said.
He also scoffed at the suggestion that the city was anticipating having its name cleared during a jury trial, and suggested instead that the available evidence would have had just the opposite effect.
“The insurance company would not pay $1.1 million early on in a lawsuit unless they recognized major problems for the city,” he said. “My suspicion is that by settling, the (JPIA lawyers) probably saved their clients several million dollars more.”
Although Gage declined to specify the settlement amount each individual plaintiff received, he reportedly told Courthouse News Service that the lowest amount awarded was $200,000, while the highest was $400,000. The federal lawsuit settlement also paved the way for Bostic and Servin to speak publicly for the first time since their respective terminations in November 2015 by then-interim city manager Nick Fenley.
To this day, Bostic stands by the public comments he had made about corruption within the Police Department and the collusion of Fenley and previous and current council members to undermine his attempt to root out the problem.
Servin, too, maintains that Fenley fired him after finding out Servin had been tasked by former city manager Oscar Rodriquez to investigate Fenley’s possible criminal activity within the Public Works Department, which allegedly included the theft of city property and overtime fraud by himself and other unnamed department employees.
“There’s a lot of people who have a lot of information about (Fenley), unfortunately they fear to come forward,” Servin said. “If I can be their voice, I’m happy to do so.”
Fenley did not return requests for comment. Rodriquez could not be reached for comment.
The Superior Court lawsuit settlement
The recent county Superior Court case settlement stems from a lawsuit filed by Officers Carlos Marin and Mario Salinas in August 2015 alleging that several former department employees had engaged in a widespread pattern of retaliation and harassment.
The JPIA had initially approved Salinas’ settlement in December, while it approved Marin’s in February, according to information provided by the city. Their joint lawsuit was ultimately dismissed on March 21.
Through an intermediary, the officers issued a statement that stated they remain dedicated officers who solely wanted to expose corruption and wrongdoing.
Their lawsuit had named former police chiefs Pompeyo Tabarez and Jim Neujahr, the city of Calexico and its Police Department, as well as former sergeant German Duran as defendants.
“The wrongdoing within the department has been both implicitly and expressly acknowledged and confirmed, both by the city itself and outside agencies,” the court complaint stated.
Duran had allegedly struck Salinas in the face and threatened to kill him after Salinas reportedly intervened on behalf of another officer that Duran had been verbally taunting during a gathering at Salinas’ home in June 2012, the lawsuit stated.
Duran was also accused by Marin of allegedly requesting Marin make false statements on a warrant affidavit as part of a narcotics investigation in February 2013, the lawsuit stated. Both Neujahr and Tabarez were accused of failing to take corrective action after plaintiffs came forward with their allegations.
Duran did not respond to a request for comment.
A tumultuous tenure
Shortly after Bostic’s arrival in October 2014, he fired several officers, including Duran, for reasons unknown.
Yet, the firings coincided with the sudden appearance of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at the police station on October 30, 2014, resulting in the bureau’s seizure of multiple computer hard drives and documents, hinting at a possible connection between the firings and the FBI raid.
Any further question of a possible connection between the firings and the FBI seizure was dispelled by Bostic himself during a subsequent press conference where he alleged that unnamed police officers had been engaged in highly questionable and possibly criminal activities.
“Exactly like the Mafioso in New York. That’s exactly how they are operating,” Bostic had said.
Bostic’s public condemnations in turn prompted those same fired officers to file a federal defamation lawsuit against him, the city and former city manager Richard Warne in December 2014.
That U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California lawsuit is still pending, as are several state administrative hearings where the fired officers are appealing their terminations.
To date, Bostic’s firings of Duran and former sergeant Frank Uriarte have been upheld, according to court documents related to the fired officers’ federal defamation case.
Bostic also expressed dismay that neither local, state nor federal prosecutors have decided to file any charges against the Calexico police officers that he had fired.
Shortly before Bostic was placed on administrative leave by Fenley, he had submitted a criminal case to the county District Attorney’s Office alleging a range of criminal activity by several fired officers.
That case was subsequently forwarded to the FBI for further investigation, since it involved the alleged theft of federal funds, the DA’s Office previously reported.
To date, the FBI has not commented about the status of any investigation into the Calexico Police Department, yet has reportedly returned some of the items seized in 2014.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California did not respond to a question asking whether it had declined to prosecute the targets of the investigations.
“I’ve never seen anything like it where every level of government literally doesn’t give a crap,” Bostic said.
Limiting liability
Both Bostic and Servin expressed continued concern for the citizenry of Calexico in light of the presence of certain elected and appointed officials who they allege are largely responsible for the turmoil that has plagued the city in recent years.
Their attorney, Gage, even hinted that some current city employees have intentions of filing additional lawsuits against the city in the near future.
“There’s a lot of them coming down,” he said.
If his prediction proves true, and plaintiffs prevail, any potential settlement or awards for damages will be borne by the city’s current insurance provider.
Prior to JPIA’s break with the city, it had provided the city with a performance improvement plan in late 2013 that aimed to limit the city’s instability as well as the financial risk that the city posed to the JPIA’s pool of membership cities.
News of the recent settlements did not sit well with Mayor Armando Real, who called the plaintiffs’ actions akin to “biting the hand that feeds you” and damaging to the citizenry of Calexico as well.
He also was critical of the decision by JPIA to approve the settlements without any input from the city, yet acknowledged that it made sense for JPIA take such a course of action in the absence of any binding contract with the city.
In contrast, any potential lawsuits against the city can be expected to be contested vigorously by both council and its insurance provider, he said.
“Now if the city gets sued, we have a choice to fight the claim,” he said.