A preliminary hearing in the Chamise Cubbison criminal case resumes today amid new disclosures about the roles of key county officials who allegedly engaged behind the scenes to oust the embattled Mendocino County Auditor-Controller.
Darcie Antle, Mendocino County’s CEO, is expected to face rigorous questioning from defense attorneys when she resumes testimony about events leading up to Cubbison’s suspension by the Board of Supervisors in October 2023. The move against an elected official rocked the local political establishment and fueled a continuing community controversy.
During a month-long pause in criminal proceedings, Antle was identified in newly filed court documents as a key participant with others, including District Attorney David Eyster, in events leading up to Cubbison’s charging and removal from office. The documents describe Antle’s role as pushing for Cubbison to be criminally charged in politically laced efforts to force her from office.
According to the documents, Antle was among county administrators who supported the forced consolidation of two independent county financial offices. They hoped to eventually create a new Department of Finance under the control of the county Supervisors. The board did force the consolidation of the Auditor-Controller Office with the Treasurer-Tax Collector, but the plan to create a new Department of Finance requires voter approval. The political fallout from the Cubbison case has raised doubts about a county-wide election anytime soon.
In addition to Antle’s role, the new court filings elaborate on how DA Eyster, who Cubbison challenged about his office spending, secretly presented a three-step plan to force a controversial consolidation plan.
Eyster is alleged to have filed a criminal felony charge of misappropriation of public funds against Cubbison after attempting for a year to pressure her into resigning in return for a misdemeanor criminal case. Cubbison chose to fight the allegations instead and hired noted Sonoma County attorney Chris Andrian to defend her.
The new court documents specifically cite the roles of Eyster, Antle, and former county Supervisor Glenn McGourty in embracing the secret three-step forced consolidation plan that the DA outlined to county administrators then, including former CEO Carmel Angelo. Eyster’s plan was part of his successful effort to block Cubbison’s appointment by the Board of Supervisors in 2022 as interim Auditor-Controller.
Voters eventually elected Cubbison to lead the consolidated offices of Auditor, Controller, and Treasurer Tax Collector. However, within four months of being sworn in, the Board of Supervisors suspended her without pay and benefits after Eyster filed the felony criminal case.
That case stems from the county’s former Payroll Manager Paula June Kennedy drawing about $68,000 in unauthorized extra pay over three years during the Covid pandemic. Kennedy is a co-defendant in the Cubbison criminal case that has been making its way at a snail’s pace 16 months after Eyster’s filing.
Antle is a key witness in a criminal prosecution seething with political tension. So far, the preliminary hearing has focused on internal county pay processes and lack of oversight rather than hard evidence of any criminal intent. Testimony supports defense claims that Kennedy worked the hours paid for and that Cubbison did not personally benefit from any extra pay.
Cubbison attorney Andrian has called it a case of “he said, she said, they said” for weeks because of the conflicting accounts given by Cubbison, Kennedy, retired Auditor Lloyd Weer, and county administrators about Kennedy’s work, the typical pay process for managers like her, and who may have given her the green light for any extra pay.
Looming large in the background, however, are emerging accusations in an acrimonious war of words related to Cubbison’s civil lawsuit against the county Board of Supervisors and multiple “John Does.” Antle locked Cubbison out of her county office on the same October day Eyster filed his criminal case. Four days later, without any public notice, Antle brought Cubbison’s suspension without pay or benefits to the Board of Supervisors.
A team of San Francisco lawyers representing the county in the civil litigation contend supervisors had to do so to “protect” the county treasury, justifying the use of a 1947 state code specifically applicable to only a county Treasurer. Cubbison had no connection to the county Treasurer’s Office until after the controversial consolidation, but attorneys argue the code became relevant to her because of the subsequent merged responsibilities.
Libert Cassidy Whitmore is a San Francisco law firm that has been paid about $120,000 to defend county supervisors in civil litigation.
The firm’s attorneys accuse Cubbison in a new 26-page court filing of presenting “irrelevant and sensational claims to support a baseless conspiracy” allegedly waged by board members, Antle, county staff, and DA Eyster.
Cubbison and her civil lawyers are making a “libelous claim” that Eyster ensured that the criminal investigation pointed to Cubbison to “remove her from her elected office,” according to the Jan. 31 filing.
Attorneys Morin Jacobs and Madeline I. Cline also contend that Cubbison “asserts, without evidence, that the filing of the criminal complaint and her subsequent suspension were part of a coordinated effort.”
Cubbison attorney Therese Cannata of San Francisco, a noted labor law lawyer, filed a blistering response a week ago.
Cannata said recorded interviews confirm that CEO Antle had “numerous communications with the District Attorney urging him to hurry up and bring criminal charges” against Cubbison.
According to Cannata, Eyster delayed filing charges for a year while he tried to “extort Ms. Cubbison’s voluntary resignation.”
Cannata contended that during the year-long delay, the DA and Antle were in “regular communication in 2022 and 2023 about how to pressure Ms. Cubbison to resign from her duly elected office voluntarily.”
The new revelations lend insight into what was going on behind closed doors when the county board blamed the Auditor’s office for delays in financial reporting and other updates. Some supervisors publicly suggested the county was failing fiscally, but that proved untrue. The forced merger had consequences that senior finance staff warned would happen because of inadequate staffing, loss of experienced personnel, and a faulty computer system.
Eyster, a pugnacious prosecutor who quarreled with other county Auditors before Cubbison questioned his office spending, has refused to publicly comment on his alleged larger role despite repeated written requests. Antle and other county officials remain publicly mum except while testifying under oath.
Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman will hear final testimony in the preliminary hearing this week and is then expected to rule on whether the criminal case will go to trial. Moorman could also act on two pending motions to dismiss criminal charges submitted by Andrian and Kennedy public defender FredRicco McCurry. The motions cite a lack of evidence.
Moorman is also overseeing civil litigation proceedings, which are occurring parallel to the criminal case. Any outcome could be months away. A March 14 conference between Moorman and attorneys is scheduled.
When CEO Antle returns to the witness stand on Monday, after a month-long break, the criminal preliminary hearing will resume. She is likely to face grueling cross-examination. Special Prosecutor Traci Carrillo, a Sonoma County attorney hired by Eyster to press his case against Cubbison at a rate of $400 per hour, had said before the break that she had no further witnesses.
So far, the preliminary hearing has slogged through questions surrounding internal county pay processes and whether an overworked management employee was entitled to 390 hours of compensation after she exhausted compensatory time off beginning in 2019. A key issue is who oversaw the Auditor’s office payroll when Kennedy, who worked from home during the pandemic, began giving herself extra pay using an obscure county pay code.
Retired Auditor-Controller Lloyd Weer was still in charge of the office when Kennedy began using the “470” code to reimburse herself for hours that everyone testified she worked, including Weer, Cubbison, Antle, and lead sheriff’s investigator Lt. Andrew Porter.
Weer denied giving any direct authorization, although he testified he was aware of the chronic long hours Kennedy put into single-handedly producing the payroll every two weeks for 1,200 county employees. Weer acknowledged meeting with Kennedy and learning about two other salaried county managers receiving extra pay.
“I told her to look into it, and maybe we could use the forms they were using,” Weer acknowledged.
Kennedy, a close office colleague of Weer, initially told investigators she never discussed the pay issue with him and pointed the finger instead at Cubbison for agreeing to the extra pay scheme.
Cubbison, a 16-year county veteran known for being no-nonsense and a stickler for process, has denied giving Kennedy the green light. She maintains that the payments began two years before she became Weer’s successor and when she was swamped with county board demands to step up financial reporting and prepare for the threatened, forced merger of the county’s two key finance offices.
Cubbison joined other senior county staff in opposing the merger, which county supervisors pushed through and unknown to the public until recent court filings, supported in the background by DA Eyster.
Attorney Cannata said it is clear that “several county officials,” including Eyster, targeted Ms. Cubbison and “took deliberate steps to derail” her career starting in the fall of 2021.
Eyster “devised a three-step plan to remove Ms. Cubbison from the Auditor’s Office and to appoint a director of finance, which is described in excruciating detail in an email to a sitting member of the Board of Supervisors,” according to Cannata’s most recent filing.
The email identifies former county Supervisor Glenn McGourty as the recipient of Eyster’s plan. McGourty has denied ever seeing it, suggesting, “Maybe it went to spam.”
However, in the new filing, Cannata contends that the Eyster email also landed in the hands of Antle, who was then Assistant Chief Executive Officer under former CEO Carmel Angelo. The email was not made part of the Board of Supervisors minutes.
“This, and other emerging facts, support the inference that Ms. Antle, the Board of Supervisors, and other members of the executive office coordinated with Mr. Eyster to target (Cubbison) by concealing from the public any evidence of each other’s involvement,” according to Cannata’s filing.
“Even though Mr. Eyster’s plan was crafted in 2021, Mr. Eyster’s continuing campaign against Ms. Cubbison is evident in the way in which he directed a biased and incomplete criminal investigation in 2022 and his collaboration with Ms. Antle to pressure Ms. Cubbison to resign and, and later effect Ms. Cubbison’s suspension in October 2023.”
The county’s attorneys counter that Cubbison’s “reliance on unsupported and irrelevant claims is not only a distraction but indicative of the lack of substantial legal merit in her positions.”
Their legal brief argues that “The alleged conspiracies and grievances she raises, such as unfounded accusations about the District Attorney and Board of Supervisors conspiring against her, are entirely irrelevant to whether the board lawfully exercised its authority to suspend her” under a disputed state statute – Section 27120.
“The law does not mandate a pre-suspension hearing, and none of the speculative or sensational claims made by (Cubbison) alter that reality,” the San Francisco lawyers declare.
The government code, adopted by the state Legislature in 1947, is in dispute because it only identifies explicitly a county Treasurer who may be suspended by a Board of Supervisors “if an action based upon official misconduct is commenced.”
Some government attorneys argue that Section 27120 applies to the treasurer only, not the auditor, for good reason. A county treasurer is entrusted to keep and invest public funds, whereas an auditor monitors and approves the disbursement of public funds.
They say the reasoning is to ensure a system of checks and balances. A justification for an emergency suspension is apparent: the need to protect public money from a potentially dishonest treasurer. According to that theory, that concern is absent since the auditor doesn’t have access to the public treasury.
County attorneys counter that later legislative action independent of that specific code allows for consolidation of county finance offices, thus providing a path for Cubbison to be suspended only two months after she was formally sworn in to oversee a newly consolidated Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tas Collector office forced by the Board of Supervisors.
The county’s law firm dismissed other contentions about Eyster’s role, including a chronic tug-of-war with the Auditor’s Office over his office spending practices, including staff dinners that skirted county prohibitions by labeling them “training sessions.”
“Whether or not the District Attorney sought changes to accounting practices for the benefit of his office is irrelevant to determining whether the Board of Supervisors had the authority to suspend (Cubbison) based on an ‘action’ for ‘official misconduct.’”
As for contentions that the DA conspired with board members and county administrators to remove her from office, the county attorneys dismissed the claim as “outlandish and relies solely on gossip blogs and online editorial articles, not factual evidence.”
Finally, county attorneys conclude, “A court cannot issue a writ of mandate that requires the county to do more than is required by law.”
On behalf of Cubbison, Cannata is seeking to be reinstated now or, at the very least, to compel Antle’s deposition in the civil proceeding.
Cannata says Antle’s sworn testimony in the civil case is essential based on her declarations and documents produced during the criminal proceedings.
Among the issues cited by Cannata are:
- Antle rushed to contact Eyster in September 2022 to initiate a criminal investigation into potential financial misconduct.
- Antle’s apparent “urgent desire” to see Cubbison face criminal charges.
- Antle’s coordination with the District Attorney to physically eject Cubbison from county offices.
- Antle’s presentation of an unnoticed, off-agenda item to suspend Cubbison at the Oct. 17, 2023, meeting of the Board of Supervisors.
“The speed of which Ms. Antle and Mr. Eyster acted to suspend Ms. Cubbison from her position was breathtaking,” concluded Cannata.
Cannata said, “There is no sufficient evidence to support the Board of Supervisors’ decision to suspend Ms. Cubbison. The decision is arbitrary and capricious, and the decision is not supported by the evidence that has surfaced to date.”
Cannata asks Judge Moormab to allow “more time for Ms. Cubbison to obtain additional discovery.”
This case shows just how much corruption seems to be going on in our local government. This should be interesting to see how this shakes out. Hopefully, the bad actors are held accountable.
Meanwhile , who gives themselves a nice pay raise
Excellent reporting and summary. Thank you.
While I confess to being drawn to this story like a moth to flame, reading about it is getting pretty exhausting. While this was well written, even the “summaries” are reaching biblical lengths. I just hope that in the ensuing years, as this case continues to drag on, that the county has a few dollars left for schools, roads,… ‘n stuff like that.
Everyone involved is on the government payroll so there is really no hurry to wrap this up.
Glad I was proved wrong.
It all started with Queen Cobra Carmelo. She properly trained Antel the Asp to continue her bidding so all of her Follies did not come forth. Time Heals all so the longer that we cannot get into Carmelo’s antics maybe we will forget. And then include Eyster the python squeezing everyone with his pay to play tactics. All abunch of snakes in the den. The board chambers full of rattlers. Snakes don’t have ears. Remember that folks. No one in Mendocino County government listens or learns. Smile n wave. Nothing to see.
Can someone please go back and report on the CEO Carmelo dynasty? So many questions… It certainly seemed to conveniently end when the schtick-up was up. Again, so many questions…
Boring!! This is human nature! I’m over it!
Absolute power corrupts absolutely!
Can we get an article about the giant hole in the million dollar transient proof fence that was just installed? Or an update about when all the intersections will be functional? Can someone tell someone ro repaint the roads around here so we can see what lane we’re in when it’s raining? I’m about to start a guerilla road repair group locals only…
Hahahaha yeah the black prison fence with 2 gigantic crashed out sites on either side of the freeway. Beautiful.
Is this the black fencing along the 101?
Yep.
That’s from Cal trans and the county didn’t use any general / voter approved funds for this project.
FYI, you can report holes or issues with the fencing to Cal Trans and they respond fairly quickly.
Um I never said the city used any funds for the fence
I’m saying the people want other news besides corrupt government and pg and e vs pottervalley articles that are only printed because theyre sensational.
typo “after she was formally sworn in to oversee a newly consolidated Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tas Collector office forced by the Board of Supervisors.”
I think you meant Tax Collector. Thank you for your reporting on this very difficult issue.