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The District Attorney's Office dropped the drug-related charges against Michael Tremell Mitchell, 26, and explained the reasons in a Monday court appearance during which Mitchell was sentenced for no contest pleas he previously had offered in another case.
District Attorney Don Anderson told Lake County News that he dropped the charges against Mitchell because of concerns that he had been interrogated by Sheriff Frank Rivero without benefit of counsel.
In an e-mail to Lake County News late Wednesday evening, Rivero denied the allegations that he personally interviewed Mitchell or violated his constitutional rights.
Mitchell had been arrested on drug charges by Clearlake Police on May 12, as Lake County News has reported.
One week later, while he was out on bail, Mitchell was taken into custody in Clearlake by members of the Lake County Sheriff's Narcotics Task Force, who then took him to his house, where Mitchell's girlfriend was told to take their baby and leave.
The girlfriend subsequently called Clearlake Police to report a hostage situation, with Clearlake Police responding and arriving at the scene with weapons drawn and aimed at a deputy visible through the home's windows. Before the situation escalated further, the deputies identified themselves to police.
Mitchell's attorney, Jeremy West, said Mitchell – who was released on bail again after the May 19 arrest – was remanded back into custody on June 3 after being arraigned on the charges stemming from the undercover operation.
It was while he was back in jail, about a month after Mitchell's arrest, that “huge problems” arose in the case, according to Anderson.
Both Anderson and West said that Rivero personally had Mitchell removed from his cell for an interrogation, an event witnessed by other individuals in the jail pod at that time.
The interrogation took place without West's permission or knowledge, a situation which West called “highly unusual,” and which hasn't happened to him before.
“Mr. Mitchell has the right to have counsel present once counsel is appointed,” which West said already had happened by the time of the interrogation.
West said he only found out about the situation afterwards, when Mitchell told him.
According to Anderson, during the interrogation Rivero allegedly discussed the case with Mitchell and asked him about bail arrangements, which Mitchell had made through Rob Brown, who also is a county supervisor.
Rivero had made a series of public comments not long after Mitchell's arrest criticizing Brown for acting in his bail bondsman capacity and bailing Mitchell out of jail, and further alleging wrongdoing and conflicts of interest on Brown's part.
Brown replied that Rivero's allegations are false, that he is complying with ethical and professional standards both of the bail bonds business and in accordance with his role as a county supervisor.
West said that during his interrogation of Mitchell, Rivero reportedly made derogatory comments about Brown.
West said the May 19 operation that led to Mitchell's arrest was “pretty embarrassing” for the county and law enforcement, and he believed the issues surrounding the incident ultimately played into the sheriff's decision to interrogate his client.
Anderson said Rivero's interrogation of Mitchell resulted in violations of Mitchell's Fifth and 14th Amendment rights under the US Constitution. In the case of the Fifth Amendment, it protects suspects from self-incrimination, while the 14th Amendment guarantees defendants' “due process of law.”
Because Mitchell discussed issues associated with his case with Rivero, Anderson said it raised legal issues about what evidence could be presented. The interrogation itself also could have been presented in court.
Ultimately, he said the issues the interrogation raised led him to conclude he couldn't move forward with the prosecution.
“Legally I could have, but morally I can't,” he said, explaining his decision to dismiss the charges from the May 19 arrest.
West agreed that the interrogation created “a major issue” in the case.
When Mitchell appeared in court on Monday before retired Lake County Superior Court Judge Arthur Mann, West said he entered no contest pleas to two charges in two separate cases – possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, arising from a previous misdemeanor conviction, and no contest to possession of methamphetamine.
Mann sentenced Mitchell to 210 days in jail, with credit for time he's already served. West said Mitchell should be out of jail in a few weeks.
In an e-mail message to Lake County News that he asked be printed “unedited in its entirety,” Rivero said the following:
“If in fact the narcotics sales case against Mr. Mitchell has been dropped by the District Attorney and the 'DA and defense attorney' in this case said that it was because I, 'personally took Mr. Mitchell from his cell and interrogated him without the benefit of counsel, violating his Fifth and 14th Amendment rights under the US Constitution,' that information is false and they are both sadly misinformed. Mr. Mitchell was arrested by Sheriff's Narcotics Task Force Detectives for selling one ounce of high grade methamphetamine at the Yuba College Clearlake Campus. That hand to hand sale of methamphetamine transaction was arranged and witnessed by narcotics detectives. Detectives interrupted the transaction in progress and Mr. Mitchell was immediately taken into custody. No further inquiry or investigation into the case was needed or done by me. As an aside, Mr. Mitchell had recently been released on bail after a Clearlake Police arrest alleging a litany of serious felonies when he committed the new offense referenced here.
“Neither the DA's Office or Mr. Mitchell's defense attorney have contacted me to discuss the dropping of the charges,” Rivero continued. “I am of the opinion that Mr. Mitchell should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for selling a substantial quantity of methamphetamine at the Yuba College Clearlake Campus. Dropping the methamphetamine sales charge against Mr. Mitchell is a gross miscarriage of justice and a grave disservice to the People of Lake County. It will likely serve to embolden criminals and exacerbate the methamphetamine problem in Lake County. Nonetheless, my Narcotics Task Force will not waver in its mission to eradicate illicit drugs from Lake County.”
Brown, who Lake County News also asked for comment, sent the following message.
“I am troubled by the fact that the sheriff would compromise the validity of any criminal case just to cover his backside with regard to libelous statements that were made against a private business,” Brown wrote in an email. “It is unfortunate that someone's constitutional rights could have potentially been violated for reasons that were personally driven and had absolutely no bearing on the criminal case whatsoever. However, in all fairness to Frank Rivero, we all make mistakes … I just hope that he has learned from this.”
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SOUTH LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday offered additional details on a Monday incident in which a man died while allegedly participating in a botched attempt to steal marijuana from a grow site.
The man – who apparently died of injuries sustained in a fall into a ravine in a wooded area between Lower Lake and Middletown – has not yet been released due to family not having been notified, officials said. The victim's exact cause of death also is pending further investigation.
On Monday, Sept. 19, at approximately 9:50 p.m., sheriff’s deputies responded to the area of Big Canyon and Ettawa Springs roads on a report that a man had fallen into a ravine and had possibly died, the report said.
Local residents had reportedly heard someone screaming for help somewhere in the woods and had located a man who told them his friend had fallen into a ravine somewhere in the surrounding hills, officials reported.
The report said deputies identified the man who emerged from the woods as 20-year-old Salvador Junior Mosqueda of Stockton.
After providing several conflicting accounts of what had happened, Mosqueda eventually told deputies that he and a friend had come to the area to steal marijuana from one of several grow sites, located approximately one-quarter mile off of Big Canyon Road, according to the sheriff's office.
Mosqueda told deputies that he and the other man were in the process of taking marijuana from the grow site when they heard people approaching in an ATV, the report explained.
After hiding for a brief time, Mosqueda and his friend took off running, and as they ran straight downhill from the area, his friend fell into a ravine. Mosqueda told deputies that he could not locate his friend due to darkness and he could only hear him moaning in pain so he continued to make his way out of the woods and began yelling for help as he approached Big Canyon Road.
Additional resources, including Search and Rescue volunteers and sheriff’s detectives, were called out to investigate the incident and attempt to locate the injured man, the sheriff's office said.
As morning approached, members of the Sheriff’s SWAT team were called in to make a tactical entry into the area and a CHP helicopter was requested to respond. The sheriff's office said marijuana suppression teams and a CAMP helicopter already scheduled for eradication operations elsewhere were diverted to the area as well.
At daybreak, Mosqueda led SWAT team members into the rugged area from which he and his friend had fled. The sheriff's report said SWAT team members located several marijuana gardens posted as alleged medical grows as they searched for the missing injured man.
When they reached the grow site Mosqueda and his accomplice had been raiding, deputies recovered several garbage bags full of plants, which the two men had abandoned as they fled, the report stated.
At approximately 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, SWAT team members located the missing man in a rock bed at the bottom of a deep ravine. The sheriff's office said that the fall victim, a Hispanic male in his 30s, had sustained serious trauma to the head and face from an apparent fall and was pronounced dead at the scene.
A CAMP helicopter was called in to air-lift the victim from the accident scene, officials reported. The body was transported to another location, where it was then removed by mortuary personnel.
Mosqueda was arrested and transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility where he was booked for cultivation of marijuana and grand theft, with bail set at $10,000.
Mosqueda remained in custody on Wednesday evening, according to jail records.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – A groundbreaking ceremony for Mendocino College's new Lake Center campus will be held next month.
The newly formed Lake County Friends of Mendocino College, an affiliate organization of the Mendocino College Foundation, has partnered with Mendocino College to host the groundbreaking ceremony beginning at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, at 2565 Parallel Drive in Lakeport.
The project is made possible by the passage of Measure W, a local bond measure which was passed in 2006 by the voters in Lake and Mendocino counties.
Construction costs are estimated at approximately $10 million.
The Mendocino College Board of Trustees recently approved Wright Contracting of Santa Rosa as the low bidder for construction of the new Lake Center, which will be located on 31 acres along Parallel Drive in Lakeport, approximately one mile south of the current college center.
College staff, representatives of Wright Contracting and TLCD Architecture will be on hand at the ceremony and the public is invited to attend and hear more about this long-awaited project.
“Construction will begin immediately so we can take advantage of any remaining good weather,” said Lake Center Dean Mark Rawitsch.
Phase one plans call for buildings totaling approximately 15,000 square feet, which will include a central administrative building housing admissions, counseling, learning resources, meeting and gathering spaces, and a classroom configured to allow for community activities.
Two other buildings included are the general classroom complex with five classrooms and a computer lab. Another classroom building will include teaching laboratories for science, music and art.
All spaces are focused around a central student plaza area which takes advantage of the natural features of the site with views of the oak grove, adjacent hills and Mt. Konocti.
Easy accessibility to the new site is from both the Lakeport Boulevard off-ramp to the north and the intersection at Highway 175 to the south.
This first phase is expected to be completed by December of 2012.
Kelseyville resident Mike Adams, the college's director of facilities planning, also directs the Measure W bond projects. He had high praise for Wright Contracting.
“They have been in business for 57 years, have an outstanding reputation and have completed five other projects for Mendocino College,” said Adams.
The company's other projects include the Vocational/Technical and Physical Education buildings, Gymnasium, Athletic Field and the Visual and Performing Arts Center, all on the Ukiah Campus.
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Close to 23,000 nurses are expected to take part in the one-day strike, which the association said is targeting registered nurses' rights to speak out for patients as well as proposed cuts in health care and retiree coverage for nurses and other hospital workers.
Hospitals operating under Sutter and Kaiser Permanente, and Children's Hospital & Research Center of Oakland will take part. In addition to Sutter Lakeside, North Coast hospitals to be affected include Sutter Medical Center in Santa Rosa.
CNA spokesman Charles Idelson said the strike will take place from 7 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, to 7 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23.
Steve Kostove, a registered nurse who worked at the hospital for 19 years and has been a part of the CNA negotiating team, said the strike will take place in front of the hospital on Hill Road East.
Sutter Lakeside spokesperson Angie Lagle said that the hospital will have replacement nurses to cover the strike.
She said because Lake County is remote and there are 33 other hospitals striking, the the company providing the replacement nurses is requiring an eight-day contract.
As such, the nurses at Sutter Lakeside who go out on strike will have to take seven additional days of unpaid leave, Lagle said.
Both Idelson and Kostove called that a punitive lockout.
“We have been at loggerheads with Sutter for a number of years due to the abusive way they have treated communities in Northern and Central California,” said Idelson, accusing Sutter of being a Wall Street organization masquerading as a nonprofit that is limiting access to medically underserved patients.
He also accused Sutter of retaliating against nurses for speaking out against patient health care cuts.
Kostove believes he's a victim of that retaliation. He was suddenly terminated on Aug. 29, but is fighting the firing, which he believes arose from his pro-union activities. Kostove added that he's continuing his work in negotiations and will take part in the strike.
Kostove said all of the hospital's 125 nurses are represented by CNA, and at a Sept. 6 union meeting attended by 46 nurses, they voted unanimously to call for a strike.
A strike is no small matter for nurses, according to Kostove, who called strikes “incredibly emotionally gut wrenching” for everyone who takes part.
The nurses union said Sutter is trying to eliminate paid sick leave for registered nurses, slashing their health care coverage, vacations, holiday pay and education leave, reducing maternity leave, eliminating or reducing retiree health benefits.
Sutter Lakeside also is proposing to close home health services and limit acute-care hospital stays, the CNA said.
Sutter responded by stating that registered nurses who work at Sutter affiliate hospitals with CNA contracts earn an average of $136,000 annually.
Lagle said the Lakeport hospital only began negotiating with CNA in July, and so is later in the negotiations process than some of the Bay Area hospitals.
“We attempted to start bargaining back in February of last year,” she said, but the union wouldn't sit down with them until July.
The hospital's contract with CNA now is expired, she said. “We were really hoping to wrap it up before it went that far,” she said, adding that the contracts usually run for four years.
She said Sutter Lakeside has offered the union several proposals, including contract changes, which have been rejected, but the union hasn't yet made concrete counter offers in writing.
Kostove said Sutter Lakeside's proposals include changing the number of hours per diem nurses must work per pay period to qualify for health insurance form 40 to 64 hours. He said 25 nurses would automatically lose health benefits.
In addition, he said the hospital is proposing to cut shift pay differential by 50 percent.
He said the last negotiating session was held on Monday, at which time 32 CNA members showed up. Based on other negotiations, that's a lot of people to show up to such a session, he said.
Kostove said morale at the hospital has never been lower, and he believes the change has come about in the past year and a half due to the new administration.
As to how long the negotiations will continue, Lagle said it's anyone's guess.
The full list of hospitals that will be affected by the strike follows.
Sutter:
Alta Bates Main Campus, 2450 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705
Alta Bates Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
Alta Bates Summit Campus, 350 Hawthorne Avenue, Oakland, CA 94609
Eden Medical Center, 20103 Lake Chabot Rd, Castro Valley, CA 94546
San Leandro Hospital, 13855 E. 14th Str, San Leandro, CA 94578
Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, 1501 Trousdale Drive , Burlingame, CA 94010
Mills Health Center, 100 S. San Mateo Drive, San Mateo, CA 94401
Novato Community Hospital, 180 Rowland Way, Novato, CA 94945
Sutter Solano Medical Center, 300 Hospital Drive, Vallejo, CA 94589
Sutter Delta Medical Center, 3901 Lone Tree Way, Antioch, CA 94509
Sutter Lakeside Hospital, 5176 Hill Road East, Lakeport, CA 95453
Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, 3325 Chanate Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Kaiser Permanente:
Kaiser Antioch, 4501 Sand Creek Rd, Antioch, CA 94531
Kaiser Fremont, 39400 Paseo Padre Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538
Kaiser Fresno, 7300 North Fresno St, Fresno, CA 93720
Kaiser Hayward, 27400 Hesperian Blvd, Hayward, CA 94545
Kaiser Oakland, 280 W MacArthur Blvd, Oakland, CA 94611
Kaiser Manteca, 1777 W Yosemite Ave, Manteca, CA 95337
Kaiser Modesto, 4601 Dale Rd, Modesto, CA 95356
Kaiser Redwood City, 1150 Veterans Blvd., Redwood City, CA 94603
Kaiser Richmond, 901 Nevin Ave, Richmond, CA 94801
Kaiser Roseville, 1600 Eureka Rd, Roseville, CA 95661
Kaiser Sacramento, 2025 Morse Ave, Sacramento, CA 95825
Kaiser San Rafael, 99 Montecillo Rd, San Rafael, CA 94903
Kaiser Santa Rosa, 401 Bicentennial Way, Santa Rosa, CA 95403
Kaiser San Francisco, 2425 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94115
Kaiser San Jose, 250 Hospital Parkway, San Jose, CA 95119
Kaiser Santa Clara, 700 Lawrence Expressway, Santa Clara, CA 95051
Kaiser S. Sacramento, 6600 Bruceville Rd, Sacramento, CA 95823
Kaiser South San Francisco, 1200 El Camino Real, South SF, CA 94080
Kaiser Stockton, 7373 West Lane, Stockton, CA 95210
Kaiser Vacaville, 1 Quality Dr, Vacaville, CA 95688
Kaiser Vallejo, 975 Sereno Dr, Vallejo, CA 94589
Kaiser Walnut Creek, 1425 South Main St, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Other:
Children's Hospital & Research Center of Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland, CA 94609
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KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – A Sunday morning incident altercation led to the arrest of two men, the discovery of hundreds of pounds of processed marijuana and more than 2,000 marijuana plants.
Jaime Diaz Rivera, 32, and Sergio Ulises Alvarez Diaz, 26, both of Michoacan, Mexico, were arrested on Sunday, Sept. 18, according to a Tuesday Lake County Sheriff's Office report.
Just before 6 a.m. Sunday the Lake County Sheriff’s Office was called out to the area between Chippewa Trail and Yakima Drive in Kelseyville, with the initial caller reporting an altercation in the vicinity and possible mention of a firearm, the report explained.
Sheriff’s deputies intercepted Rivera and Diaz, who officials said were leaving the immediate area on Mojave Trail.
The Sheriff’s K-9 began searching for a third person who had been seen at the residence, and while conducting the search the K-9 alerted to marijuana, according to the report.
By 9:30 a.m. narcotics detectives had secured a search warrant for the residence. The report said that in the residence and garage detectives found 468 pounds of processed marijuana, and on and near the property they discovered 2,077 marijuana plants.
Diaz was arrested for cultivation of marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and an immigration violation, while Rivera was arrested for cultivation of marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale, immigration violation and an outside warrant of arrest, officials reported.
The two men were transported to the Hill Road Correctional Facility, where both men are being held on no-bail immigration holds, according to jail records.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be contacted through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.
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