Accused of lying about ties to ex-assessor Bill Postmus, John DeFazio says no to a plea and may now face trial
BY IMRAN GHORI
STAFF WRITER
ighori@pe.com
Published: 07 February 2012 08:15 PM
An Apple Valley businessman accused of lying about his ties to former San Bernardino County assessor Bill Postmus turned down a plea deal Tuesday that would have spared him prison time.
As a result, John Dino DeFazio, 52, will return to court Thursday for a preliminary hearing to determine whether he will face trial on six felony charges of perjury.
In an unusual but not unprecedented move, Superior Court Judge Michael Dest put the terms of the proposed deal on the record.
If convicted, DeFazio faces up to nine years in state prison, Dest told him. The deal would have reduced the charges to one misdemeanor in which he would be sentenced to 90 days in county jail.
“That would be the end of the case,” Dest said.
DeFazio responded that he was rejecting the deal.
The offer was disclosed after lengthy backroom conferences between his attorney Richard Ewaniszyk and Deputy District Attorney John Goritz and Dest.
Outside the courtroom, DeFazio maintained his innocence and said he could not agree to any deal.
“If I was guilty, I’d have pled,” he said.
To read entire story, click here.
Looks like Postmus has recanted his testimony and the two other witnesses have given a different story than the one allegedly given to the investigators. Nothing else could give a defendant this kind of confidence. There is a pattern of over charging these cases and then offering a misdemeanor with little or no custody time.
For a DDA to take a nine year case and plead it down to something like this should be embarrassing to the office. This is the third or fourth instance of this, Eyler, Derry and the council member from Grand Terrace all were looking at serious prison time and were offered misdemeanors. It looks like this is the first possibly innocent defendant who stood up to Ramos. I am surprised that Dest would accept such a plea anyway. There was a time when judges would dismiss a clear case of insufficient evidence or if the evidence is there, insist on a nine year case go to trial and not accept an embarrassing reduction like this.
This smells.
It looks to me like the prosecution is doing everything possible to avoid having Bill Postmus testify. I wonder if they have any other tricks up their sleeve to try to delay the preliminary hearing.
It should be very entertaining to hear Mr. Postmus testify how he “secretly controlled” the Inland Empire Political Action Committee.
No way they can try him now, any juror will google his name and see the offer he refused. Not Guilty !
He took the advise of the one person who will make the most money from him going to trial. What a good decision.
So does this mean that Billy rolled on Dino…NO WAY!!
Interesting article in today’s Sun and Daily Bulletin regarding Bill Postmus testimony. No wonder the prosecution wants to cut deals and avoid the courtroom.
Mike Ramos selective prosecution continues to fall apart, and I continue to look forward to the day where he has to disclose how much taxpayer money he has wasted.
the longer this whole charade goes on the better Ramos can hide the actual amount of money he has blown on this case. There should be a recap of these expenditures, if the Daily Bulletin wasn’t so deep into him they would probably push the issue.
uknow:
When the prosecution came up with their absurd reason for not disclosing how much money they have spent (that it might help the defendants), they acknowledged that they will have to disclose it eventually.
Hopefully they will be held to their word, and also disclose the accurate amount.
Rumors are that it already exceeds $10 million; imagine how much real crime they could have prosecuted with that money if they were so inclined.