The long run
One-time meter reader reflects on decades as DA
People commit crimes. Cops investigate. Cases go to court. Guilt or innocence is decided. Someone goes to jail or walks free. The community must live with the result and it is often debated — and criticized — no matter the outcome.
At the local level, the linchpin of the process is the District Attorney, a county’s top law enforcement officer. Their office decides if there is enough evidence to take a case to court and prosecutes it if there is. It prepares witnesses and consoles victims and may even appear at hearings to oppose the release of a convicted offender.
In Imperial County, the chair of the county’s lead prosecutor has been held since 1995 by Gilbert G. Otero, 66, whose soft-spoken demeanor belies his somewhat imposing height. He announced Wednesday he will not seek an eighth term in 2022 and will leave the office in January 2023.
It was a short time after taking office in a shocking upset of a twoterm incumbent that Otero said he came to a realization about the job he had taken on.
“Two investigators, a man and a woman, from DOJ (Department of Justice) showed up with four binders. Each was a high-profile case. They were showing me the cases. I was blown away by it,” Otero recalled.
“I asked ‘Why are you showing me this?’ The man asked the woman if she could leave the room. She did and he said to me, ‘You’re the D.A. Nothing happens in this county unless you say it does. Nothing happens in this county you don’t know about.’ It was like a bat to the head. I realized how important this office is. You can determine what happens to someone’s life,” he added.
The son a of a school custodian father, Gilbert M., and homemaker/ school nurse’s aide mother, Estela, Otero was raised in Brawley and started his working life as a meter reader for the Imperial Irrigation District in the mid-1970s. But he said his father wanted more for him and encouraged him to get an education. Thus, Otero earned a degree from the San Diego State University campus in Calexico in 1978 even as he kept his day job and started a family with wife Deborah.
Then it was she who gave his contentment a boot.
“I can honestly say I never thought I’d be a lawyer,” he admits with a half smile he often uses to punctuate a point he is making. “I had my degree. I was working for IID. I was happy. She said, ‘What are you going to do?’”
Otero said his next move was meant to be nothing more than appeasement.
“After some heated discussions, I looked in the Yellow Pages and saw Western State University College of Law. I said ‘When they reject me, I’ll stay at IID.’ They didn’t reject me,” Otero recalled.
Law degree in hand by 1983, Otero opened a practice in Brawley and quickly gained a reputation for his successful defense of those facing criminal charges from misdemeanor driving under the influence to felony drug trafficking. There were those, however, who felt he should switch sides.
“Cops said I should run for D.A. I used to represent some in the drug business. They said ‘Why don’t you come over to our side?’” Otero recalled.
A more influential voice again came calling as well.
“My wife was my office manager. I would say ‘I got this guy off.’ But she said if a drunk driver ever killed one of our kids, she’d never forgive me,” he said.
Thus, in 1994, Otero challenged incumbent William Jaynes and defied the odds with a victory.
“They had more faith in me than I did,” Otero said of his family. “I felt it was a challenge to run for office. I owe a lot to my wife and kids. She realizes the massive responsibility of the office. They stepped back to let me do my job. They supported me.”
In time, Otero said he grew comfortable with the job, its responsibilities, and even politics where he looked up to former Sheriff Oren R. Fox, who served five terms from 1978-98.
“No one is going to outwork me in a campaign. And I emulated (Fox’s) way of politics, the way he treated people with dignity and respect. I wanted to be like that, but I will never outdo the sheriff,” he said, noting he joins many in the county who will always see Fox as their sheriff, despite him being long retired.
With seven terms making him Imperial County’s longest-serving district attorney, Otero has secured his place in local history. Still, he concedes he hasn’t made everyone happy and that has never been his intent.
“I’ve been threatened and cussed out. But I’d do it all over again. It’s a great job, the most gratifying I’ve ever done,” he said.
Asked what he enjoys most about the job, he replied, “Knowing we got some of these bad people off the streets. When the victim thinks we did the best we can and the victim thanks (the prosecutor). These prosecutors tell me these stories. The successes far outnumber the things we haven’t been able to do.”
Otero answered quickly about what he will miss most about the job.
“The people that work for me day in and day out, that serve the public. I am going to miss walking in here and saying hello to my family. I tell them, ‘Your loyalty isn’t to me, it’s to the office.’ They have a smile on their face because they know they’re doing good,” he said.
Yet the work has not come without frustrations. Changes in state laws have made the job more difficult and, in his opinion, the public less safe.
“How we handle those accused of crimes,” Otero said when asked what has changed the most in his now nearly 27 years in office. “The shift from holding people accountable to blaming everyone else for why they did things.”
Shorter sentences, early releases and housing inmates at county jails that formerly would have went to state prison are what he sees as flaws in the criminal justice system.
“We know the Mexican mafia controls the prisons. Holding inmates locally expanded the role of the Mexican mafia to 58 more jails (one for each county),” Otero said.
If he could improve something to reduce crime Otero said it would be returning more vocational education to schools, such as auto repair, carpentry, welding and culinary arts, and having more educators enter counseling.
“You want kids to have a better life, to do well? Be a high school counselor. Find out what they want. Let’s try to keep them out of the system,” he said.
The toughest question for him seemed to be why he decided to leave office. He paused for a long moment and then explained, “I just felt it was time. Yesterday (Wednesday) after I announced to my staff, there was no turning back. It felt right.”
As to what comes next when he leaves the job in about a year, Otero conceded he remained uncertain.
“I still have a year. I have some private-sector offers. I don’t want to jump into anything. My wife said ‘If you’re going to work 8-5, run for office.’ I want to relax and be happy. I’m not going to work full time.”