‘Complete BS.’ Blame game heats up after Fresno DA drops case against council president
After Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp’s office dismissed the criminal attempted extortion case against Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza on Monday, Smittcamp called the case “a complete waste of everybody’s time” and said her office was faced with the ramifications of the City Council’s “dysfunction.”
In a phone interview with The Bee, Smittcamp said the dismissal of the case was “frustrating” for a number of reasons.
“It was a complete waste of everybody’s time and effort, quite honestly,” Smittcamp said. “If the City Council could manage their business more professionally, we wouldn’t be placed in this position over, and over, and over again.”
Monday’s dismissal ended, at least on paper, Fresno’s hottest political controversy of the year. The case centered around an April conversation between Esparza and then-City Attorney Doug Sloan.
During Monday’s court hearing, Esparza said in a prepared statement that he told Sloan he would vote to terminate him if he did not abide by a city resolution passed by the council majority. Esparza said he did not direct Sloan to violate his legal or ethical duty.
City Councilmember Garry Bredefeld first alleged that Esparza’s words amounted to extortion in a May news conference. The district attorney’s investigation and charges followed. Monday’s dismissal occurred a week before the case was scheduled for trial.
From the beginning, Esparza said the allegations against him were politically motivated.
“This latest tantrum comes with the irony that Bredefeld is the only councilmember who has knowingly weaponized city staff and resources, including the city attorney’s office, for political gain and media attention,” Esparza said in a May statement responding to the allegations.
Esparza, in May, also said Bredefeld’s “latest charade” would adversely influence the hiring of the next city attorney “by muddying the waters with politics,” seeing that Bredefeld said Esparza’s alleged crime forced the city attorney to quit.
A little more than six months later, after the District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case, Esparza declined to share his thoughts and opinion of the situation.
“I do have many more thoughts, but at this time, in the best interest of allowing everyone to move on, I’ll keep those to myself,” Esparza said outside the courthouse Monday. “We’re very happy about what happened today.”
The next day, however, he released a statement “clarifying facts” about comments made by the District Attorney’s Office and in media reports.
“The Council President will continue to do his job unapologetically, while being mindful of his approach, and of other people’s feelings and perspectives,” the statement from Esparza’s office said.
Criticism of Smittcamp’s office
Local Democrats, including Councilmember Miguel Arias and the Fresno Democratic Party, have accused Smittcamp and her office’s public integrity unit of targeting elected Democrats.
The Fresno Democratic Party outlined several actions by Smittcamp’s office they said were political attacks, including charging Democrats Joaquin Arambula and Esparza with crimes. The Democrats said they believed the charges were politically motivated since Republican elected officials who were investigated were not charged with crimes.
Smittcamp bristled at the allegation.
“It’s complete bullshit. It’s manufactured statements by people who have political agendas,” Smittcamp said of the criticism.
Arias responded to the news of the dismissed case Monday saying Smittcamp “single-handedly tarnished the ‘integrity’ of the public integrity unit.”
“It has zero nonpartisan credibility, and in the interest of justice, it should be shut down and the resources redirected to prosecute violent crimes,” Arias said.
Esparza, in his Tuesday statement, accused Smittcamp and Sloan of repeatedly attempting to try the case in the court of public opinion.
“At no point did the Council President make any serious attempt to try the case in the media with his side of the story, despite his political opponents and the District Attorney’s witness doing so repeatedly,” the statement said. “The Council President respected the judicial process from the day charges were filed.”
Both Smittcamp and the prosecutor on the case, Victor Lai, denied that Esparza’s case was politically motivated.
“I have never been directed to investigate, or not investigate anybody, based on political affiliation,” Lai said in a media interview outside court. “If the DA asked me to do that, I would refuse because that’s not what we do.”
Smittcamp noted that her office is legally and ethically obligated to investigate the complaints it receives. She and Lai both pointed out that the office does not initiate investigations. Someone from the public must file a complaint to trigger an investigation.
“There are members of the city council that continually create drama and create false narratives about the purpose of the public integrity unit and the intentions of the district attorney — me specifically, as well as the office,” Smittcamp said. “So, yeah, today is an extremely frustrating day for me, as the district attorney, because we continually have the ramifications of the dysfunctional procedures at the City Council get dropped in our lap.
“Then, we’re stuck with this mess, and we have to try to sort it out,” she said. “Then, when we do or do not proceed with charges, based on facts and law, it turns out that we’re the ones who get criticized for things that aren’t true.”
Smittcamp declined to respond to Arias’ comments directly.
The Democrats doubled down Tuesday, calling for Smittcamp’s resignation.
“After years of going after high profile elected Democrats and losing case after case, the original intent of the Public Integrity Unit was a lie,” said Ruben Zarate, chair of the local Democratic Party. “Smittcamp instead of bringing integrity has degraded her office by utilizing public resources to further her political agenda and has made her office highly polarized, it is time for her to step down.”
Bredefeld’s news conference
Smittcamp and Lai both said Bredefeld’s May news conference potentially negatively affected their case since it came before their office received the complaint.
“Anytime the facts of a potential criminal act are in the media before they’re investigated, it never turns out well for the investigation,” Smittcamp said. “That’s why we have confidentiality. That’s why we don’t discuss these things with the media or with people outside of the investigative team.
“Confidentiality is key. If you cannot keep confidence, you cannot work in law enforcement,” Smittcamp said. “So yes, it is extremely difficult to prosecute cases after people have made the content of what would otherwise be confidential investigative information, public.”
Bredefeld said he exposed the situation because he strongly believes the public has the right to know what’s happening in City Hall and how taxpayer money is being used. Bredefeld said the allegation moved forward as the District Attorney’s Office acted as they saw fit with the information. Then, the court proceedings played out, he said.
“That’s the legal process, and I respect it,” Bredefeld said.
Lai said Esparza’s acknowledgment on Monday also could’ve changed how the case unfolded if he had talked earlier.
“If Councilman Esparza had made his acknowledgment that he did today a little earlier, where he said, ‘OK, maybe I did say those words,’ maybe this would have been different,” Lai said. “I don’t know. I had to go with the information that we had at the time.”
Esparza pushed back on that statement in the statement from his office on Tuesday. He said the statement was “a show of goodwill and made in the spirit of allowing everyone to move on.”
It was not an admission of new evidence, he said.
“The statement made in court prior to the dismissal was not new information and was certainly not an admission of any criminal activity,” Esparza said. “This series of events is publicly detailed in a civil lawsuit filed and dismissed earlier this year. The statement in court was consistent with that lawsuit, offering the Council President’s perspective on the matter as the only new additional detail.”
City attorney, district attorney relationship
In the past, Smittcamp recommended the city change the city charter regarding how the city attorney is hired. Fresno’s strong mayor’s administration hires and fires most city employees. The Fresno City Council has the authority to hire two department directors: the city attorney and the city clerk.
“An inherent conflict can be assumed from this format,” Smittcamp said in a statement earlier this year. “Similar to other important city administrative positions, it would be well-advised for the city council to consider changing the city of Fresno Charter to have the city attorney be hired by the city manager and mayor and be approved by the city council.”
Smittcamp briefly and publicly clashed with Sloan when he asked her to clarify comments she made during a television news interview about a Brown Act investigation.
After his court hearing, Esparza participated in the swearing-in ceremony for the new city attorney, Andrew Janz, a former prosecutor in Smittcamp’s office and candidate for mayor.
Smittcamp said she looks forward to the future relationship between her office and the city attorney’s office under Janz.
“I am very much looking forward to seeing how the presence of Andrew Janz as the city attorney is going to affect how the council operates.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2022 at 11:50 AM.