Two days after the Santa Ana City Council directed City Attorney Sonia Carvalho to release the results of her investigation of the land swap between Miguel Pulido and a city auto parts supplier, Senior Assistant District Attorney Michael Lubinski sent a letter to Carvalho asking the Council to reverse its position. In his letter, obtained by Voice of OC, Lubinski writes, “The disclosure of confidential reports is premature and should not be released until our investigation has concluded to ensure justice.”
As we previously reported, the Santa Ana City Council on Tuesday evening voted in closed session 6-0 to issue an ultimatum to the Orange County District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas, and the Fair Political Practices Commission demanding that they issue criminal charges against Mayor Miguel Pulido by September 30th or they will release the details of their investigation into Pulido’s property swap windfall.
We really aren’t surprised at the position Mr. Lubinski has taken, we have seen similar cases of the DA’s office wanting details kept secret until they complete their investigations and prosecutions. We also recall that Lubinski’s boss, DA Tony Rackauckas was initially elected to his office pledging that he would not aggressively investigate corruption charges against public officials like his predecessor. Throughout his terms in office Rackauckas has faced criticism that he ignores violations by public officials, particularly those he is close to.
In June, Voice of OC reported on the chumminess of Pulido and Rackauckas at the Santa Ana State of the City Luncheon. Reporter Adam Elmarek wrote:
In his State of the City address Wednesday, Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido spoke passionately about the city’s efforts to reduce crime, improve neighborhoods and create better educational opportunities for its children.
But a day later, it wasn’t the speech that many who attended the event were talking about. It was the visual of Pulido and District Attorney Tony Rackauckas — who is leading a criminal investigation into a property swap between the mayor and a city contractor — sitting together at the head table. Read More.
But after the initial report of the letter from Lubinski by Elmahrek Tuesday afternoon, the story took a wild twist. In his story Elmahrek quoted DA spokes-person, Chief of Staff Susan Kang Schroeder, responding to his question of how long the DA’s investigation would take, saying “We will be filing charges when the investigation is done, and I can’t say when that will be,” Schroeder said during an initial interview. “The investigation will be done when it is done.”
Elmahrek’s story was later updated as follows:
After this quote appeared, Schroeder claimed she was misquoted and asserted that the determination as to whether charges will be filed against Pulido won’t be made until the investigation is complete.
That correction was apparently not good enough for Schroeder, who went on a tirade issuing a press release accusing the Voice of OC of being unethical and inaccurate in its reporting of numerous stories over the years. In her press release Schroeder writes:
“Any reporter might make a mistake, but it’s unethical to not correct their mistake when it is obvious they made one and it creates mistaken fact.
Any publication that quotes any future stories from the Voice of OC should proceed with extreme caution and verify its accuracy. If anyone would like the details of the Voice of OC’s pattern of misconduct and unethical behavior, they should contact me directly. Meanwhile, the OCDA is contemplating all remedies available on future contacts with the Voice of OC.”
REGISTER FILE PHOTO
We have been on the receiving end of verbal tirades from Schroeder before. We can say unequivocally that failure of a writer to report a story exactly the way she wants it reported often results in similar responses to the one received by Elmarek. Such conversations are intensely unpleasant. This is however the first time in a long while, that Kang Schroder has responded so aggressively against a reporter or publication. The last we recall was when DA Rackauckas began refusing to speak to the Los Angeles Times, for an extended period of time, because he felt their reporting and quotes were inaccurate.