Zuckerberg’s security detail in S.F. under siege
If you want an idea of how justice works — or maybe doesn’t — consider the saga of the neighborhood transient repeatedly charged with harassing members of Mark Zuckerberg’s security detail outside the Facebook mogul’s San Francisco home. One case went up in smoke after questions were raised about some of the detail’s members. It turns out that three of the Zuckerberg guards who were due to testify had checkered records from their days as Oakland cops, which prosecutors worried could be damaging to the case. And the latest case has the ring of deja vu — but first, the backstory. Facebook lawyers sought a restraining
order in 2015 on behalf of 15 guards working round the clock outside the Dolores Heights home where Zuckerberg lives with his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan. The guards said William Gordon Kinzer, a transient living in his car down the street, had repeatedly threatened them and made racist rants.
When Kinzer violated the order, he was sent to jail for three months. Once out, he continued to mix it up with Zuckerberg’s security crew, authorities alleged. He was arrested in September and charged with felonies that included stalking, making criminal threats and violating his earlier stay-away order.
When lawyers from the public defender’s office representing Kinzer started poring over the prosecution’s witness list, they discovered that three of the guards were ex-Oakland cops with disciplinary records — including for excessive force.
Prosecutors, fearing the ex-cops’ testimony might do more harm than good, responded by dropping them from the case. They wanted Kinzer to take a plea deal that would put him into counseling.
Kinzer’s lawyers rejected the deal, and in April, prosecutors blinked and dropped the charges. Kinzer, who had spent seven months in jail, went free. End of story? Hardly — because on June 14, Kinzer, now 65, was arrested again — this time after he allegedly drove his car menacingly toward Zucherberg’s protective detail, then sideswiped a moving vehicle before speeding off. He is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail on suspicion of a series of misdemeanors that include disobeying a stayaway order, hit-and-run and driving without a license.
Two of the former Oakland cops with troubled records are still providing security for Zuckerberg. And as luck would have it, they were on duty when the latest incident took place, according to authorities.
As a result, just like last time, we’re told they won’t be asked to testify if the case goes to trial. Prosecutors hint that other witnesses will be called to describe what happened.
But then, we know how that worked out the last time.
Incidentally, Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBolt said information about the security detail was confidential and that the Facebook boss had no comment.
Smoldering: Friday’s fire at a seven-story apartment and retail complex under construction near downtown Oakland has put the spotlight on the expanded use of woodframe construction in residential buildings.
In 2008, the state’s codes were rewritten to allow buildings under eight stories tall to use wood framing, over two floors of concrete. The construction method generally is much cheaper than the old way, which required “noncombustible” exterior walls — typically, concrete and steel studs — from top to bottom.
But experts tell us all that wood makes the buildings especially vulnerable during construction, before sprinklers and flame-resistant drywall are in place.
That proved to be the case in 2014, when a sixstory, 124-unit apartment complex under construction in San Francisco’s Mission Bay went went up in flames. The fire was later ruled an accident.
Similarly, a five-story apartment building under construction in downtown Emeryville, on the Oakland border, burned twice in the past year — though in both those cases, investigators have concluded it was arson.
Sad saga: The rollercoaster marriage of former state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and wife Nadia — whose sex and drug scandal cost her her job as an Alameda County supervisor — has taken another downward plunge.
Nadia Lockyer, 46, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of misdemeanor battery of a spouse after she allegedly went on a drunken rage inside a vacation home in the Sierra foothills town of Twain Harte, according to Tuolumne County sheriff ’s officials.
Bill Lockyer suffered an undisclosed minor injury in the incident, authorities said. Sheriff ’s officials say they received a call from the house at about 10:55 a.m. about an intoxicated woman yelling and throwing things, though they did not identify the caller.
Authorities said Nadia Lockyer had a blood alcohol level of 0.22 percent when she was arrested — well over the legal limit for driving. She was held for several hours before she was released on $5,000 bail, a Sheriff ’s Department spokeswoman said.
“This is obviously an extremely difficult time for the family, and as they work through it, privacy is imperative,” said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Bill Lockyer. “Bill is focused on his kids’ wellbeing and his wife’s health.”
Nadia Lockyer resigned as an Alameda County supervisor in 2012 after a meth-fueled affair with a South Bay man, who allegedly assaulted her in a motel room and tried to blackmail her with an X-rated tape he had shot of the two.
Nadia Lockyer subsequently was in and out of drug rehab, and the couple appeared headed for certain divorce. That is, until two years ago when they reconciled and began making a new life for themselves in Southern California — capped off when Nadia Lockyer proudly announced on her Facebook page that she had given birth to twin boys. The couple have one other son.
But just a couple days before her arrest, Nadia Lockyer sent out a more ominous Facebook message — a complaint about the state of her 14-year marriage in which she declared, “With a huge broken heart and bruises, I’m filing for legal separation.”