District Attorney Mike Ramos

The San Bernardino County Sentinel
Friday, July 16, 2010

Former sheriff Gary Penrod accumulated compromising information and materials pertaining to district attorney Mike Ramos which was then utilized to blackmail Ramos and head off an incipient effort by the district attorney’s office to file criminal charges against Penrod pertaining to a host of criminal acts the sheriff was himself involved in.

The dossier the sheriff’s department compiled on Ramos, reliable sources have informed the Sentinel, referenced or documented a host of depredations engaged in by the district attorney, including his reception of money from highly questionable sources that included drug traffickers, specific information about his sexual involvement with employees in the district attorney’s office as well as the county public defender and photographs of Ramos in flagrante delicto with prostitutes.

Penrod

Penrod, who fell under the scrutiny of the grand jury and the district attorney’s office in 2006 because of his failure to report on as the department psychologist to the sheriff’s department’s personnel, avoided being criminally charged for falsifying those state documents, which he signed under the penalty of perjury, by cultivating a close political and personal relationship with Ramos and simultaneously arming himself and his department’s investigators with knowledge about how Ramos was comporting himself and with whom he was associating. This information, which Penrod withheld, had problematic implications for Ramos not only legally, but with regard to his continuing political viability and his personal and family life as well.

The upshot was that Penrod succeeded in hamstringing Ramos and those that served under him in the prosecutor’s office in such a way that pursuing a criminal case against the sheriff was soon considered to be entirely out of the question. Penrod enjoyed this insulation from prosecution despite Ramos’ publicly state goal of reining in political corruption and violations of the public trust perpetrated by elected and appointed officials, the creation of a special unit within the district attorney’s office for that purpose and the filing of charges against other public figures for engaging in activity indistinguishable from that of Penrod.

For several years in the middle of the current decade, Ramos enveloped himself with a support network, one that has been ironically referred to as a posse, consisting in large part but not exclusively of other Hispanic personages of substance with roots in the San Bernardino/Colton/Redlands area and who had risen to enviable positions of status either within the business community or law enforcement. That network served to abet Ramos, and even shared, in his indulgences and in large measure insulated him from the consequences of his acts. Simultaneously, his circle of friends and associates used Ramos and his status to enrich or promote themselves and their own personal, business or political interests.

Key players in this milieu were Ramos, Penrod, U.S. Marshal Adam Torres, private investigator Larry Gonzales, former San Bernardino County coroner Brian McCormick tow service owner Manny Acosta, entrepreneur James Braswell, car dealership magnate Mark Leggio and entrepreneur Oscar Chavez.

Penrod was elected sheriff in 1994 and reelected three times subsequently. In January 2009, he abruptly announced his retirement, two years into his fourth term. Ramos, who was employed as a probation officer in the 1980s and joined the district attorney’s office upon passing the bar in 1989, ran successfully for the Redlands Unified School board and in 2002 was elected district attorney. He was reelected to that post without opposition in 2006 and was victorious over three challengers this year

Adam Torres, originally from Colton and a graduate of Cal State San Bernardino. He was a fraud investigator with the IRS and was working in the capacity of supervisory special agent for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, when he came into the Ramos fold during the 2002 election. In 2003 he was appointed U.S. Marshal overseeing the Central District of California , including the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, and San Luis Obisbo by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate on May 15, 2003. In that capacity he worked closely with Penrod on the Federal Inmate Housing program, which is contracted with the county of San Bernardino through the marshal’s office and involves the use of the county’s detention facilities to hold federal inmates.

Manny Acosta is Ramos’s cousin, and was one of his major political backers. He operates Pepe’s Towing Service, which maintains large corporate yards in Riverside and in Colton. By plying Penrod with substantial political contributions, Acosta had succeeded in winning for his company a favorable spot on the sheriff’s department’s towing rotation, meaning that Pepe’s Towing would be regularly summoned to tow away and impound vehicles sheriff’s deputies had issues with, from being unregistered, to being driven by intoxicated drivers, to being used to transport contraband to being utilized as getaway vehicles in robberies or burglaries.

Braswell is a successful operator of convalescent homes, the owner of the Calimesa golf course and the owner-operator of Pharaoh’s Lost Kingdom, a water park in Redlands. He owns currently or was at one time a principal in 33 corporations or LLCs.

Mark Leggio is with his brother Chris the owner of Mark Christopher Auto Center in Ontario, Mountain View Chevrolet in Upland, and Diamond Hills Auto Group in Banning. He is also an owner of Golden West Bank in Upland.

Oscar Chavez is an entrepreneur who over the years owned a host of business, including a car dealership in Arizona, two car dealerships in Bloomington in which he was partnering with Braswell, and the proprietor of the Carlos Obrien’s Cantina located at 440 West Court Street in San Bernardino.

According to Chavez, a core of supporters, including Torres, McCormick, Acosta, Gonzales, Braswell and Leggio coalesced around Ramos in early 2002. Ramos was the top vote getter in that year’s February primary, edging another challenger, Frank Guzman, and the incumbent district attorney Dennis Stout. Well before the November run-off, Stout declared his intention not to campaign and essentially conceded the race to Ramos. At that point, Penrod, the incumbent sheriff who was running unopposed in his race that year and had not offered his endorsement in the DA’s race in the primary, swung behind Ramos, effectively becoming a vaunted member of Ramos inner circle.

Chavez, who had multiple business interests in San Bernardino County, was persuaded by Gonzales of the wisdom of befriending the political establishment, and he agreed, he said, to put up $20,000 in support of Ramos’ campaign. He provided Gonzales with $5,000 to forward to Ramos, he said, and donated the remaining $15,000 through various business entities he controlled or owned, including . Rancho Sales and Leasing, Carlos O’Brien’s, and LA Amigos Auto Sales.

In the heady days following Ramos’s victory, in which his election marked the first time a Hispanic had acceded to the position of district attorney in San Bernardino County history, the spoils of victory were divided up and an ever more intensive social association within the group developed.

All in the circle appeared to have prospered by Ramos’ victory and their association with the winner. Braswell, whose more than 30 businesses involved all order of complication and intensive convolution of regulation involving the business code, the health code and the penal code, benefited by his camaraderie with both Ramos and Penrod.

Torres saw his career lurch upward just after Ramos became district attorney, pulling down the appointment as U.S. Marshall. It was never officially confirmed, of course, but his close association with the groundbreaking Hispanic Republican prosecutor in the country’s largest geographical county and what was and remains the state’s fifth most populous county, was said to have been a key factor in his appointment.

Penrod, likewise, gained by his friendship with Ramos. Newly forged partners in fighting crime, they soon took to jocularly referring to themselves as Batman and Robin. With the district attorney’s office overseeing all of the criminal cases churned up by the sheriff’s department, Ramos and his staff played a role in seeing that the sheriff’s successes were touted, his mistakes and shortcomings buried and his reputation maintained. And Ramos had a critical say over whether other issues Penrod was plagued with would ever see the light of day.

For Gonzales, Ramos’ election and the entre it provided him to the district attorney’s office and to Penrod and the sheriff’s office was a godsend. A former law enforcement officer who had been president of the Latino Police Officers Association, Gonzales boasted strong law enforcement credentials and his ties to the sheriff and district attorney’s office furthered that air of mystique. But private investigators often, as did Gonzales, play both sides of the street and represent criminal defendants whose lawyers have a need for information routinely reposited in police reports, files or computer systems to see that their clients beat the rap or mitigate the charges they face. With his Ramos/Penrod connection, Gonzales was able to access law enforcement data bases – the CCLETS, JDIC and NCIC systems that contain information on the arrest records, case status, dispositions, and convictions and parole or probation status of not only criminal suspects and subjects, but witnesses, victims, drivers, licensees and ordinary citizens. A colorful raconteur whose accounts of actual police department operations he had participated in were often indistinguishable from the tall tales he would regale others with, Gonzales was soon bragging that he was given “unofficial” status with the prosecutor’s office and the sheriff’s department, working on “sensitive” assignments.

Acosta’s fortunes were boosted by his cousin’s electoral victory as well. He and his company, Colton-based Pepe’s Towing, had clawed to near the top of a brutal industry, characterized by cut-throat competition for franchises at the municipal, county and state regional level. To qualify for a towing franchise, business owners must meet basic standards showing they have sufficient equipment and vehicles to service a given area, operate 24 hours a day, have liability insurance and bonding, store vehicles safely and collect money. But meeting those criteria alone does not suffice and tow service owners must negotiate the wicked political cross currents in the areas where they must operate. The recommendation of a police chief in a given city or the sheriff in the county is de rigeur. And while getting on the tow rotation can ensure that a company can subsist at a level of marginal profitability, establishing close ties with the police officers or sheriff’s deputies who work the streets and can prioritize who is to be called first when impounds are to be made can make the practice of towing cars downright lucrative. One of Gonzales’ newfound functions was to facilitate the doling out such perquisites as plum towing assignments on behalf of the sheriff’s department. Before Ramos and penrod cruised to victory in 2002, Pepe’s Towing was already established. Afterwards, it grew even more. Today, the company has 45 trucks ranging from light duty to 70-ton heavy duty underlifts out of four yards. At the auctions it holds to sell off the cars the company impounded which the owners do not have sufficient funds to reclaim, Pepe’s Towing typically offers upwards of 60 vehicles.

Leggio’s family fortune was long before secured by his father, who had named his largest dealership after Mark and his brother when they were still children, and he did not need an association with Ramos or Penrod or anyone else to enhance his business success. But Leggio was looking for something different by his relationship with the two highest ranking law enforcement authorities in San Bernardino County. Rather, his association with Ramos and Penrod enhanced his standing, his gravitas, his status as a man of substance.

And Chavez, a particularly energetic businessman infused with the entrepreneurial spirit, was like Leggio, elevated by his association with Ramos and Penrod to a social standing he had heretofore not enjoyed, and like the others, benefited financially by his involvement in the newly created Ramos Posse. He opened Carlos O’Brien’s Cantina on Court Street in 1999. The business was successful, serving as a restaurant that appealed to the crowd at the San Bernardino Courthouse by day and a nightspot that transformed into a cantina at night. Upon his association with Ramos and Penrod, that success was racheted up another notch or two. Carlos O’Brien’s, subject to the regulation of the city of San Bernardino rather than the county, was nevertheless extended licensing as a restaurant, bar and underaged club. That is, it was licensed by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to serve alcohol but was permitted by the city to admit patrons between the ages of 18 and 21. The club proved a roaring success. By late 1993, according to the office of then-supervisor Jerry Eaves, Carlos O’Brien’s was the second largest generator of sales tax revenue in San Bernardino County’s Fifth District. And Chavez was prospering on other fronts, as well. A byproduct of his membership in the posse was first, his making the acquaintance of Braswell and then a deepening association with him. By 2004, the two had entered into two separate partnerships pertaining to auto dealerships.

But boys will be boys, and one of the goals was to have fun. For the men of Ramos’ Posse as well as Ramos himself, that meant women, lots of women.

“I used to fix girls up for everybody, Larry Gonzales, Gary Penrod, Mike Ramos, Brian McCormick, Jim Braswell,” Chavez said. “I used to bring ladies up to Jim’s house.”

Chavez described the Braswell estate as a perfect site for such get-togethers. “It is out in Yucaipa, at the end of the street, right at the top of the hill with hundreds of acres around him.”

Occasionally, Chavez said, the bacchanals would be held at Acosta’s home, also located in Yucaipa. No such activity was ever detoured to Penrod’s home, located in Yuciapa as well, or at the Ramos residence, in Redlands. “They had wives,” Chavez said.

Often, the whole posse would be present for the orgiastic ongoings, Chavez said, which were leavened with generous amounts of alcohol. “There would be a lot of drinking, girls, everything,” Chavez said. But he also arranged more intimate trysts, some that were just one-on-one, two-on-one, two-on-two encounters. These took place, for the most part, at Carlos O’Brien’s, which is a short walking distance, about a quarter of a mile, from what was then the district attorney’s headquarters where Ramos’ office is located, and a relatively short one-and-one quarter mile driving distance from the sheriff’s headquarters on East 3rd Street.

“At Carlos O’Brien’s we had VIP rooms, upstairs,” Chavez said. “They were for friends like this.”

Near the revelry of the Cantina and within easy access to the bar, still inside the Carlos O’Briens but removed from the rabble. Secure. And private, except for the unobtrusive security cameras.

Ramos was a frequent visitor. He was occasionally accompanied by his office’s then-second-in-command, assistant district attorney Mike Risley, Chavez said. Penrod was occasionally came by and made use of the upstairs VIP chambers. So, too, did McCormick, that is, until January 2005, when his office, that of coroner, was merged with the sheriff’s office and he was replaced by Penrod.

And so the first two years of Mike Ramos’ reign as district attorney passed, with Penrod and Ramos – Batman and Robin – working hard, arresting bad guys and seeing them convicted. They worked hard and they played hard, reaping the rewards of their hard work, taking part in the unbridled licentiousness that Chavez offered.

But toward the end of 2005, what had been working like clockwork for nearly two years came to an abrupt end.

“Jim Braswell and I had a partnership on two car lots,” Chavez said, on property that was then located within the unincorporated county community of Bloomington, but which has since been annexed into the city of Fontana. “I had an agreement with Jim for how he was going to pay for what we were working on together, how we were to cover all the expenses. Once we had everything set up, I was supposed to pay for everything going into the business and after it was operating we put all the money in the bank. At the end of the year we were going to split the profits. So the time came and there was around two million dollars in profits. I told Jim, ‘You owe me $1 million.’ He told me he doesn’t owe me anything. From then on I was in a fight with Jim Braswell. ”

It wasn’t a fair fight, Chavez said. “Jim Braswell is a member of the sheriff’s committee. I got a call from Larry Gonzales, who said there is what they call the sheriff’s black team that he was part of and they take care of all of the dirty work for the sheriff. He said if I didn’t just drop all of this with Jim Braswell I was going to get arrested and there was going to be $500,000 bail.

“Things went bad for my business after that,” Chavez continued. “I opened Carlos O’Brien’s in 1999 and never had a problem until 2005. After I was fighting with Braswell, everyone came into my business, San Bernardino Police, city code enforcement, ABC [Alcoholic Beverage Control), the state Franchise Tzx Board, the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency], the health department, the sheriff’s department. They suspended my license and sent me to an administrative hearing. At an administrative hearing you don’t have a chance to defend yourself. The people who are the police are the judge. The ABC said I was allegedly selling more alcohol than food. I presented receipts to show them that wasn’t true. They said my receipts were false. They weren’t. I told them to show me the ones that said I was selling more alcohol. They never did. They made me change the night club to 21 and over. That killed my business. Seventy-five percent of the people who go out to a club like I had are 18 to 21. I opened in 1999 and did very good business for more than five years. I closed in 2006. Jim is a very powerful guy. Sheriff Gary Penrod and the guy in charge of the ABC ride motorcycles together. [Former state senator] Bill Leonard is their buddy. Once calls the other and the other calls another and that one calls another and things get done. I was making a lot of money and they finished that. They can destroy you. I have borrowed from my family. I am struggling right now. When you have people with money getting together with the power of the police, it can be a very bad thing.”

Before the downtown Carlos O’Brien’s finally gave up the ghost four years ago, the place was raided by law enforcement, including the sheriff’s department, on several occasions. Many things were taken or went missing. Receipts for items seized in such searches are supposed to be filed or cataloged. As is often the case, as in the case of Carlos O’Brien’s, those receipts or logs are woefully incomplete. Among the items that went missing were some security videos that contained some very interesting moving images.

Those tapes are no longer in Chavez’ s possession, although he has an almost photographic memory of what they depict.

“I happen to know that there was a conversation between Larry Gonzales and Gary Penrod and what was said was ‘Oscar knows a lot of things and he could cause us trouble.’ I have been continuously hassled and harassed. They accuse me of being a drug dealer. I am not a drug dealer. Sheriff’s cars park out in front of my business. I would say I have been stopped or had my house or business searched by the sheriff 40 times in the last four years. In the last year, I have been stopped 15 times and had my car searched.”

Chavez has gotten similar treatment from the district attorney’s office. In March 2009 he was charged with six felonies, all of which stem from a single trip he made to the DMV to renew his license. A Mexican native who has lived in the United States, for the most part, since the 1980s, Chavez initially adopted the American way and used a single last name, Chavez. But when he sought to renew his expired license, he was asked by the clerk if he had any other type of official identification. He produced his Green Card, whereon he is identified as Oscar Chavez-Elizondo. In compliance with the clerk’s instructions, he filled out the renewal forms using the Chavez-Elizondo surname. When the discrepancy between his earlier applications and his most recent application was discovered by the district attorney’s office, he was charged with three felony counts of perjury, since in filing the paperwork he made three representations of himself as and three times signed as Oscar Chavez-Elizondo. For good measure, the district attorney’s office is charging Chavez with three felony counts of burglary. The theory under which those charges are lodged is this: Chavez entered a public building – the DMV office – with the intent of committing a crime, to wit, misrepresent himself as Oscar Chavez-Elizondo, which the state of California does not recognize as his true name. He is charged three times because he signed Fettel dismissed five of the charges – the three burglary charges and two of the perjury charges. Fettel instructed the district attorney’s office to proceed against Chavez on a single count of perjury, about which he further expressed doubt. When the case was transferred from Fettel’s courtroom to that of judge Cara Hutson, the district attorney’s office reinstated the two perjury and three burglary charges Fettel had dismissed. It would appear that Mike Ramos is intent on seeing Oscar Chavez discredited.

In the intervening years since the heyday of Carlos O’Brien’s, things between Mike Ramos and Gary Penrod got dicey. At the root of it was action – criminal action – by Penrod and the desire of some members or former members of both the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office to do something about it.

One depredation Penrod engaged in was at least six straight years of falsifying his California Form 700s – disclosure documents required of elected and some appointed government officials that report on those officials economic interests. In filling out his Form 700s beginning in the early 2000s, Penrod failed to report the income his wife was receiving. His wife, Nancy Bohl-Penrod, is the proprietor of the Counseling Team, a firm that specializes in psychological services. The Counseling Team, beginning in 1986 and running through to 1999, had a no-bid contract to provide psychological services to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. In 1998, Penrod and Bohl purchased a home together in Yucaipa, taking out a $452,000 loan together to make that purchase. After some controversy over the matter, in 1999, the county put the contract for psychological services out to bid, and after a competition in which the board of supervisors relied upon a recommendation made by the senior members of Penrod’s department, Bohl was allowed to keep the contract. In April 2000, after Penrod’s divorce from a previous wife, Janet, was finalized, Bohl and Penrod married.

In 2006, a complaint concerning Penrod’s failure to disclose his wife’s income was made to the district attorney’s office along with a complaint on the matter to California Fair Political Practices Commission.

In August 2009, the Fair Political Practices Commission, which is empowered to levy fines but does not have the authority to criminally prosecute, closed out the case against Penrod, who had resigned from office six months earlier, with a warning. Between the time the complaint was filed and the issuance of the warning by the Fair Political Practices Commission, Ramos steadfastly refused to take up the matter or allow his public integrity unit, which he formed in 2003 with the express purpose of monitoring and prosecuting public officials, to file a case against Penrod. With the issuance of the Fair Political Practices Commission’s ruling and Penrod out of office, Ramos considered the matter closed.

Ramos has not given other public the same break. Jim Erwin, a former assistant assessor, has been charged with 10 felony charges of perjury and filing false documents stemming from his having failed to disclose on his 2008 Form 700s that he was provided with a $12,765 Rolex watch and air fare to and accommodations in New York and Washington, D.C. by Rancho Cucamonga developer Jeff Burum.

Ramos earlier had grounds to criminally charge Penrod and had shied away from that opportunity as well. In 2003, the sheriff’ department, the district attorney’s office and the California Department of Insurance had begun an investigation into the practice of bail bond capping by several bail bondsmen operating in San Bernardino County. Bail bond capping consists of paying a jail inmate to solicit business for a particular bail bond company, which is prohibited by law. Two of the bail bondsmen under investigation were Steve Tidwell and Daniel “Boone” Tidwell, two of former San Bernardino County sheriff Floyd Tidwell. Tidwell had been a close friend and mentor to Penrod and was responsible for promoting Penrod into ever higher managerial assignments during his reign as sheriff from 1983 until 1991. As sheriff emeritus, Tidwell in 1994 was a prime mover in the sponsorship of Penrod’s electoral effort following the retirement of Dick Williams as sheriff after one term in office.

As the investigation into the bail bond capping proceeded, search warrants were issued for the places of business and homes of the bail bondsmen under scrutiny. At Boone Tidwell’s home, investigators came across two unlicensed firearms that still bore stamps or tags indicating they had been removed form the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Departments evidence or property lockers. When asked how he had come by the guns, Boone Tidwell told investigators that he had been provided them by his father. An investigation ensued, during which it was determined that 523 guns from the sheriff’s departments evidence lockers had gone missing during Floyd Tidwell’s eight-year tenure as sheriff. A search warrant for Floyd Tidwell’s premises in both Oak Hills and Big Bear was prepared. Before that search warrant could be served, however, Tidwell arrived at sheriff’s headquarters in his pick-up truck with 94 guns packed in old milk crates. He turned the crates over to Penrod.

That development greatly upset the sheriff’s department official overseeing the case, deputy chief Mike Cardwell, and the supervising deputy district attorney assigned to the case, Cheryl Kersey. After a cursory examination of the matter, the overriding conclusion was that it was Penrod who had tipped off Tidwell about the pending search warrants. Despite Cardwell’s and Kersey’s calls for an investigation and prosecution, Ramos overrode those demands.

Cardwell, who was widely viewed at that time as the heir apparent to replace Penrod when he retired, took early retirement in 2004 after the manifestation of what were shown to be sharp differences with Penrod over the prosecution of Tidwell. Neither Cardwell nor Kersey, who is now a Superior Court judge, were willing to comment on the matter.

Ramos, paralyzed by the blackmail material the former sheriff possesses, has carried on gamely, ignoring the whispers within the law enforcement circles where he must professionally function.

One impeccable law enforcement source, who requested anonymity, confirmed to the Sentinel that the Carlos O’Brien VIP rooms’ security tapes had fallen into the hands of the sheriff’s department.

“They aren’t going to let you watch them,” he said.

In response to a request by the Sentinel for an inventory of what items had been seized in a raid carried out by the sheriff’s department at Carlos O’Brien’s in December 2005, Arden Wiltshire, a spokeswoman for the department, said, “I would check with district attorney’s office. I wouldn’t have access to that in the records I have. If charges are to be filed, that would be through them or if it was adjudicated, it would be through them.”

Susan Mickey, the spokeswoman for Ramos and the district attorney’s office, said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” when she was first asked about the issues pertaining to Oscar Chavez and the Carlos O’Brien Cantina. When she was queried specifically about the security tapes recovered from that location that contained moving images of Ramos, she said, “We will not have any comment on that.”

Braswell, after saying he would release a statement about his association with Penrod, Ramos and Chavez, had not done so by press time. Manny Acosta and Mark Leggio did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. Torres was unavailable. Efforts to reach Gonzales were unsuccessful.