L A County To Give Millions More For Judicial Benefits? Injunction Hearing Looms

Los Angeles, CA Monday, June 22, 2009 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is poised to approve untold millions of dollars of what has been ruled as illegal payments to Superior Court Judges. This in spite of the fact that the Judicial Watch organization is scheduled to press for Injunctive Relief in a Superior Court hearing on Monday, July 13, 2009.

* MYSTERIOUS COUNTY BUDGET PROCESS REVEALED:
The County Supervisors are expected to routinely approve, without discussion, an obsure Agenda Item listed on Page 9 Section V as “ Other Budget Items” No. 17 #7 that reads: ......

"For the purposes of Government Code Section 29125, Trial Court Operations shall constitute a single budget unit within the General Fund, with separate cost centers maintained for individual court Districts and Central Court Operations. Authorize the Chief Executive Officer and the Auditor-Controller to make appropriation adjustments between the above mentioned cost centers within the Trial Court Operations budget unit“without any monetary limitation”.

* NO SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION:
When the Full Disclosure Network requested supporting documentation for this agenda item from the Administrative Office of the Board, Amy Bennett informed us “there is no supporting documentation” and she went on to say of the authorization that “this is a boilerplate paragraph that has been used previously.”

* BLANK CHECK FOR TRIAL COURT OPERATIONS?
Without supporting documentation it is difficult to determine just exactly how the County Administrative Officer and Controller will spend the $238,154,000 for Trial Court Operations as shown in Budget Summary (page 60.1) FY2009-10. This is especially curious since the 1997 enactment of the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act when the state assumed primary responsibility for funding of the trial courts, with counties providing maintenance of effort (MOE) payments.

* APPROVAL OF $300 MILLION IN ILLEGAL BENEFITS TO JUDGES
This could explain how the judicial double benefits were mysteriously appropriated in the amount of approximately $300 million to L.A. Superior Court Judges over the last 20 years. A Fourth District 4th Appellate Court decision (Sturgeon vs County of Los Angeles) held that the double judicial benefits were illegal and was affirmed when the Supreme Court refused rehearing even with letters of support from such notables as major law firms, all the special interest and ethnic Law Associations and Bar Associations, the L. A . County District Attorney Steve Cooley and the Public Defender. View Appellate Court Decision Here: www.judicialwatch.org/documents/2008/sturgeon-v-losangeles-ruling.pdf

Read the entire Full Disclosure Report with background here:
http://www.fulldisclosure.net/news/2009/06/monday-l-county-supervisors-to-give.html


* DID L A COUNTY STONEWALL DISCOVERY?
In an April 2009 interview with Attorney Sterling Norris, Full Disclosure® learned about the circumstances of how Judicial Watch had tried to obtain discovery from the County in the Sturgeon case Here he describes how he attempted to learn who authorized the illegal judical payments in excerpts below from the cable television interview videotaped on April 1, 2009:

NORRIS: “We tried and tried in discovery to seek where and when these benefits were approved. And of course, it is our contention that nobody ever did. --We asked, in our discovery, is there any meeting wherever this was discussed, by the supervisors, or in session, in secret session, even then, we were given nothing by the County in terms of discovery. The only thing they said, well, there there’s a final budget. All they had titled on it was Judicial Benefits, no meetings. no approvals, just Judicial Benefits. And that was like a spike on the final budget. That was the only thing that the County gave to us for justification of where did this money came from”

DUE PROCESS FOR RICHARD I. FINE?
In a telephone interview from his L.A. County Central Men’s Jail cell, disbarred attorney Richard I Fine told Full Disclosure “ the county benefit payments to the Judges are nothing more than a pretext to influence the judges to decide cases in favor of the County.” Fine, has been in jail for over 110 days for contempt of court following his attempt to disqualify Judge David Yaffe from sitting on a case that involved L. A. County, an interested party in the case.

UNEARNED BENEFITS?
Both Mr. Fine and Sterling Norris of Judicial Watch maintain that the County payments to the Judges are “unearned” payments, contending the Judges do not have a contract to perform services with the County of Los Angeles, yet they have been paid. According to Fine, the judicial payments are in violation of Federal Mail Fraud Law, 18 USC 1341, 1343, 1346 covering the intangible right to receive honest services.

Related Videos:
www.fulldisclosure.net/Programs/538.php Richard I Fine Interview #
www.fulldisclosure.net/Programs/539.php Richard I Fine Interview
www.fulldisclosure.net/Programs/540.php Sterling Norris Interview
www.fulldisclosure.net/Programs/541.php Judicial Bias,US Supreme Court

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