(October 25) The defense being constructed by San Bernardino City Councilman Robert Jenkins’ legal team in answer to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office’s filing of 30 criminal charges against him relating to identity theft, forgery, stalking, and unlawful electronic distribution of private information does not square with evidence already accumulated by the investigators that have worked the case, according to the district attorney’s office.
On October 17, Jenkins was charged with 18 felonies and 12 misdemeanors pertaining to his use of the internet to place several personal advertisements on Craigslist seeking sex liaisons and then diverting responses to those ads to his former partner or the man whom Jenkins believed his former partner to be involved with, as well as with forging a San Bernardino Police Department internal memorandum. Jenkins is represented by attorney Virginia Blumenthal, who proclaimed her client’s innocence and arranged for a bondsman to post $25,000 bail on Jenkin’s behalf through the court on October 17 so Jenkins avoided both arrest and being taken into custody.
Jenkins must stand for reelection on November 5 and face down an electoral challenge in San Bernardino’s Second Ward from Benito Barrios. Blumenthal questioned the timing of the filing of charges against Jenkins, saying it was being used as a political ploy to unseat him in the upcoming election. She said he will not resign from office as he is being called upon to do from multiple quarters and that she will enter a not guilty plea on Jenkins’ behalf at his scheduled arraignment on December 17. She said Jenkins will fight the charges and, if after the airing of evidence indicating her client’s innocence and motions to have the charges dropped are not granted by the court, she will see the matter through to trial.
The defense she intends to mount hinges largely on the contention that it was Jenkins who was victimized by the Craig’s List postings.  Blumenthal suggested Jenkins, who previously hid but now openly acknowledges his homosexuality, was set up by his former lover, who had a key to his home and access to his computer.
But the Riverside District Attorney’s Office says  evidence churned up during the course of its investigation contradicts that version of events. Investigators traced the online ads to Jenkins directly at locations beyond his home, linking the postings, through IP, or Internet protocol, addresses at his workplace at the Riverside Office of Education and the home of his relatives, where his former boyfriend had no access.
Moreover, the forged San Bernardino Police Department memorandum was conclusively shown to be the handiwork of Jenkins, investigators insist. Jenkins is said to have relied upon his access, as a city councilman, to materials unavailable to the two alleged victims in the case. The forged memorandum utilized the names of two department employees, Sgt. Tom Bielaszka and Lt. Dario Robinson, along with police department seals. The memorandum was intended  to make it appear that Jenkins had also been a victim of online harassment.