Mayor Helen Tran and six of seven members of the San Bernardino City Council this week found themselves under intensive pressure to place Police Chief Darren Goodman on administrative/medical leave following the assertion by Goodman’s attorney last week that the police chief is under constant and continuing medication to alleviate insomnia, depression and anxiety.
Joseph Richardson, an attorney with the Redlands-based law firm known as the McCune Group, publicly broached the subject of Goodman’s use of drugs in a lawsuit he filed on September 24 on behalf of Goodman. That lawsuit names the City of San Bernardino, as a public entity, and Councilwoman Treasure Ortiz as defendants, along with 25 other potential further defendants, who are unnamed. The suit alleges Goodman is the victim of discrimination, harassment and retaliation in violation of California’s fair labor law, both Government Code § 12940(k) and Labor Code § 1102.5 and that he was subject to a hostile work environment and the intentional infliction of emotional distress at the hands of Ortiz.
The suit maintains that he had responded to and met with Ortiz in November 2023 and again in August 2024 during the run-up to and during her successful campaign for 7th Ward councilwoman in regard to her accusations that her opponent in that election, James Penman, had access to and made use of information pertaining to her contained in one of the databases available to law enforcement agencies. It was Ortiz’s contention that entries in that database – the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System – had been accessed by a member or members of the San Bernardino Police Department and provided it to the Penman campaign, which used it in formulating electioneering material provided to voters in the 7th Ward which supported Penman and attacked Ortiz. It is both Goodman’s and Richardson’s contention that Ortiz made an illegal recording of her conversation with Goodman’s meeting with her at San Bernardino Police headquarters on August 29, 2024 during which they discussed how the San Bernardino Police Department detective, Steve Desrochers, who had obtained that information using one of the police department’s computer terminals, in an apparent violation of the law, which prohibits the use of information contained in such databases to which law enforcement agencies have shared access from being used for political purposes or anything other than legitimate law enforcement activity or investigations.
Two weeks prior to the August 29, 2024 meeting between Ortiz and Goodman, Ortiz had, at Goodman’s suggestion, met with Sergeant Jose Loera, the president of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association at restaurant in north San Bernardino on August 15, 2024. She recorded that conversation as well. Loera, during that conversation, acknowledged that Desrochers, one of his predecessors as union president, had run her name through one of the databases shared by law enforcement agencies.
While Goodman during the August 29, 2024 conversation with Ortiz enunciated his belief that Desrochers had overstepped his authority by accessing the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, known by its acronym CLETS, and that the use of the information gleaned thereby for use in support of Penman, who had been endorsed by the San Bernardino County Police Officers Association was illegal, making prosecution of Desrochers for misuse of government assets appropriate, he subsequently shifted in his opinion. Members of the police department/police union claimed that in 2020, Ortiz, then a community activist, had made statements with regard to then-Mayor John Valdivia that were deemed “threatening,” and that the department, accordingly, undertook an investigation of Ortiz, which included Desrochers, on March 12, 2020, accessing the CLETS database to look into Ortiz’s criminal history.
Meanwhile, Ortiz, who had unsuccessfully competed for appointment to the position of Third District San Bernardino County supervisor in 2018 and ran unsuccessfully for Third Ward San Bernardino Councilwoman in 2019 and failed in her run for San Bernardino mayor in 2022, prevailed in the November 2024 race for 7th Ward councilwoman in November 2024 and was sworn into office in December 2024. Ortiz was not kept abreast of the developments in the investigation. When no prosecution of Desrochers ensued, in March 2025 she filed a claim against the city alleging CLETS had been improperly accessed as part of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association support of Penman and its opposition to her candidacy.
Thereafter, Ortiz, who, despite her victory in the 2024 election, had never been on good terms with the San Bernardino political establishment, experienced a further deterioration in her relationship with her council colleagues, city staff and everyone involved with the police department. On repeated occasions, city officials dismissed the allegations in Ortiz’s claim as misrepresentations, falsehoods, inaccurate and fabrications. In May 2025 the city rejected the claim, following that up with further statements denying its substance and assertions. Ortiz augmented her previous social media postings that included snippets from her recordings of her conversations with Loera and Goodman in which they acknowledged that Desrochers and the police union had made use of the data extrapolated from CLETS to assist Penman in his 2024 electoral effort against Ortiz. In reaction, city officials, most pointedly the mayor and members of the city council, relied upon Goodman, his gravitas, his status, his reputation and hismmmmmm to counter Ortiz’s narrative.
Ortiz, for her part, did not relent. She had already contacted the FBI and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office with regard to what she alleged was the unlawful use of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System in Penman’s campaign against her. On August 13, 2025, she held a news conference in front of San Bernardino City Hall, at which she publicly declared that the accusations in the claim she had filed against the city were accurate and that she was being pressured by city officials to drop the matter, extending to Chief Goodman seeking to “blackmail” her by threatening to publicly release information regarding her arrest record if she proceeded with a lawsuit based on the claim. The following day, on August 14, 2025, in an effort to get the district attorney’s office to act on her previous complaint regarding Desrochers’ accessing of the CLETS data base for information regarding her, she provided copies of the recordings of her August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2024 conversations with Loera and Goodman.
In November 2025, Ortiz, represented by attorney Peter Schlueter, filed suit against the city in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging a member or members of the San Bernardino Police Department had improper accessed the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to obtain access to her confidential records and had engaged in a conspiracy in doing so and thereafter. The suit named the City of San Bernardino, Steve Desroachers, Darren L Goodman, Jose Loera, Former San Bernardino Police Chief Eric McBride, James F Penman and the San Bernardino Police Officers Association It sought $2 million in damages.
The substance of the suit was in large measure built upon the contents of the recordings Ortiz had made of her conversations with Loera and Goodman, respectively, on August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2024.
On January 21, 2026, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed the two Section 632(a) charges against Ortiz, alleging she had not disclosed to Loera or Goodman that she was recording the August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2025 conversations she had with them nor sough their permission to make the recordings.
Also in January, Goodman and Loera lodged complaints with city administrators regarding what they said were Ortiz’s false accusations about their involvement, either actively or passively, in the abuse of the access the San Bernardino Police Department had to the law enforcement agency databases that resulted in information relating to her having been used during the 2024 electoral season and other examples of what they characterized as her harassment of each of them, retaliation against each of them and her abuse of her authority derived from her position as a council member. The following month, on February 3 and February 10, respectively Loera and Goodman filed notices of claims against the city, citing their separate but similar ordeals in having to weather the accusations that were being leveled against them by Ortiz.
In reaction to the claims filed by Loera and Goodman, the city issued, at the direction of the city council, a cease-and-desist letter to Ortiz on February 27, 2026. Slightly more than a month later, on April 1, 2026, the city council voted 6-0 to approve a resolution of censure against Ortiz, making findings that she had “participated in a pattern of retaliatory actions against city appointees and employees… engaged in slanderous commentary targeting city employees [and] disseminated illegally recorded confidential communications.” The resolution further stated that “Many of Ortiz’s actions that created the need for censure were directed at Chief Goodman.”
The matter with regard to those two misdemeanor charges went to trial before Judge Melissa Rodriguez and a six man-six woman jury. On September 10, after a 9-day trial and two partial days of deliberations, the jury returned a mixed verdict, exonerating Ortiz on the charge of illegally recording the conversation with Loera but convicting her of illegally recording the conversation with Goodman.
With that pronouncement by the jury in the criminal trial behind them, Richardson and McCune Law Group on behalf of Goodman, filed suit against the city and Ortiz. The primary issues cited in the lawsuit stem from mostly direct acts of commission Ortiz’s part, accompanied by indirect acts of omission on the city’s part for railing to “reign in” Ortiz. In this way, according to the lawsuit, Ortiz created a hostile work environment in which Goodman was carrying out his duty as police chief and subjected him to harassment, while elected city officials at Ortiz’s level of authority – the mayor and city council – and senior city staff had knowledge of Ortiz’s conduct but not take “timely or adequate action to investigate” her conduct. In Ortiz’s capacity as a city councilwoman, according to Richardson, Ortiz “exercised superior authority over the [police] department.”
While the lawsuit names both the city, a so-called “deep-pocket” entity which is presumably in a position to pay out a substantial amount of money to Goodman in the event of a settlement or judgment in his favor, and Ortiz, whose financial circumstance is far less solid, the language of the lawsuit has Goodman adhering to the city’s position on virtually every issue with which it has a substantial difference with Ortiz. Whereas the contents of the recording Ortiz made of the conversation she had with Goodman on August 29, 2024 show the police chief in essential lockstep with Ortiz with regard to the use of the shared law enforcement agency database by at least one member of the police department in connection with the 2024 Penman campaign’s strategy to keep her from being elected and that the abuse of that access constituted an illegal act, since the filing of Ortiz’s claim in March 2025 Goodman has backed the city in its contention that neither the department nor any of its officers nor the police officers’ union illegally or improperly accessed information pertaining to her in the database.
Goodman’s lawsuit disputes the allegations in Ortiz’s federal lawsuit as well as the statements made in the August 15, 2024 Loera recording or the August 29, 2024 Goodman recording up upon which her lawsuit is based indicating her file in the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System database was improperly accessed by Desrochers. Richardson instead indicates that the investigation into Desrochers’ use of the database to obtain information about Ortiz was not completed as of August 29, 2024 and that Ortiz launched an attack on Goodman when the investigation failed to reach the preconceived conclusion that Ortiz wanted.
“Following plaintiff’s [i.e., Goodman’s] failure to validate Ortiz’s unsubstantiated allegations, Ortiz commenced a sustained campaign of harassment, intimidation, and retaliation against plaintiff, conducted through and under the authority of her elected office.”
Ortiz’s vote against providing Goodman with a raise constituted retaliation, according to Richardson.
“At a public city council meeting at which the criminal charges against her were read into the record, Ortiz retaliated against plaintiff by voting against a routine executive-classification salary adjustment and publicly singling out plaintiff’s compensation,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further suggests that in exercising her fiduciary authority in another incidence, Ortiz’s contempt for Goodman was manifest.
“Most recently, on or about August 6, 2026, plaintiff wrote city representatives about what seemed to be Ortiz’s attempts to prevent the SBPD [San Bernardino Police Department] from getting approval to submit a funding request in response to a notice of funding opportunity from the Model Cities Initiative (MCI). Plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that Ortiz had the item removed from the agenda, and made inaccurate and misleading statements to thwart SBPD’s attempts to take advantage of a significant funding opportunity. Plaintiff stated in that letter that he believed Ortiz’s actions to be yet another act of the continuing retaliation that she directed toward him, through punishing the [police] department’s attempt to gain funding, and through undermining the authority plaintiff expected to normally operate in. In short, plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that even functions that SBPD, through its chief, a mutually understood matter of course were now subject to undue scrutiny by Ortiz that undermined plaintiff’s attempts to do his job in obtaining badly needed funding for SBPD.”
Moreover, according to Richardson, Ortiz’s standing as a councilwoman imbued her personal criticisms of the police chief with a false authority.
“Throughout the conduct described above, Ortiz used city resources to attack plaintiff, including her official title and elected office, City Hall and its facilities as a backdrop, city time, and her official City-sanctioned social media accounts” to attack Goodman, the lawsuit states. “Ortiz weaponize[d] her elected office against the chief.”
In making the case against Ortiz contained in the lawsuit, Richardson relied on a number of items that were contained in the resolution of censure passed by the city council as well as the language included in the cease and desist letter. Those included the city’s contention that Ortiz had in April 2025 posted a video to her social media channels announcing she had filed a legal claim against the city while at the same time claiming the city has a reputation of mismanagement, corruption, and operating with disregard for the rule of law, asserting that violations are ignored and power is abused. Goodman’s lawsuit utilized the city’s assertions that in pushing for an investigation of the misuse of the law enforcement databases, Ortiz’s “allegations of being targeted were presented as fact, despite being unsupported by conclusive evidence.” Richardson further relied on the city’s assertion that the lawsuit Ortiz “initiated against the parties” and “the factual basis for [her] claims, remains unresolved and unproven.”
In making accusations against Goodman that the department had failed to follow through on a thorough investigation of the use of the CLETS data for political purposes while she was serving in the capacity of a city council member, Richardson suggested, just as the city council had in its resolution of censure and cease and desist letter that Ortiz’s action “constitutes conduct that can reasonably be perceived as harassing, derogatory, and damaging to the professional reputations of city employees.”
Richardson repeated the city council’s assertion that Ortiz in referencing alleged corruption within the city and the police department and subsequently making statements directly attacking the character, credibility and integrity of city staff, had done so after she “had been informed [her] claims were false and dishonest, rendering [her] continued repetition of those allegations based on knowing indifference to factual findings.”
The lawsuit also rehashed the cease and desist letter’s claim that Ortiz knew her “legal claim to be frivolous, filed in bad faith, dishonest, and an improper attempt to obtain money from the city.”
Despite utilizing the city’s resolution of censure and the cease and desist letter sent to Ortiz as much of the documentation of the factual basis upon which to base the lawsuit and back his own claims of wrongdoing by the councilwoman, he delaying its action against Ortiz, leaving Goodman to twist in the wind.
“The city knew of Ortiz’s conduct for many months – including through Chief Goodman’s repeated complaints to the city manager and his formal February 2, 2026 written complaint of harassment, retaliation, and abuse of authority – and did nothing meaningful to protect him until it issued the belated cease-and-desist letter and censure.”
The suit states, “A great deal of damage has been done by the city, through not only the actions of Ortiz, but the indifference of the city in reigning those activities in, while they were done under the cloak of city legitimacy, using the city’s resources. In short, Ortiz weaponized her office – while the city watched, to undermine the credibility of Chief Goodman through thwarting the progress of SBPD. As a direct, foreseeable, and proximate result of the conduct alleged herein, plaintiff has suffered and continues to suffer economic harm, including lost employment and consulting opportunities and a loss of earning capacity, and injury to his professional reputation.”
Without marshaling much in the way of proof, Richardson in the lawsuit suggested that Goodman, who is African American, was being discriminated against because of racial prejudice.
“Plaintiff was subjected to discrimination, harassment, and/or discriminatory and retaliatory policies, practices and procedures based upon his race,” the lawsuit states.
Near the end of the 23-page lawsuit, on page 22, Richardson included, as part of the sixth and last cause of action, some language that either was intended to give Goodman an earlier exit from his post of police chief into retirement than was previously thought would be the case or which inadvertently is complicating the prospect that Goodman can remain as police chief in San Bernardino.
That paragraph reads, “As a direct, foreseeable, and proximate result of Ortiz’s conduct, plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress, including humiliation, anxiety, and chronic insomnia requiring prescription medication and therapy, in an amount to be proven at the time of trial. The aforementioned conduct constitutes malice, oppression, or fraud, thereby entitling plaintiff to punitive damages.”
A cross section of San Bernardino residents – ones from all walks of life, ranging from those who are passionate supporters of Ortiz, others who have expressed intense antipathy toward her, those who are apolitical and indifferent to developments impacting members of the city council or the contention and rivalry that exists among those politicians to supporters of the police department in general and the only slightly smaller subset of that group who are indefatigable supporters of Goodman and regard him as an almost deific figure – there was a uniform sense of shock at what Richardson had disclosed.
That put the ball squarely in the court of the mayor and city council. On Wednesday, October 7, the council is set to meet in a closed session, one from which Ortiz is virtually certain to be excluded, to discuss what action the council is to take with regard to Goodman’s lawsuit. Under different circumstances, that discussion might simply confine itself as to what preparations the city should make in defending against the suit or what stance to take in seeking to come to a negotiated settlement with Goodman and Richardson to put the litigation they have launched behind the city and behind Goodman so that there can be a resolution which allow him to focus on the operation of the police department. Richardson’s faux pas, if indeed it was a faux pas, in letting the cat out of the bag with regard to Goodman having to be medicated in order to show up to work every day and deal with Ortiz as one of his political masters brings into the equation another set of variables which defy easy resolution. That the police chief has to be constantly drugged just to get through the day is a concept and situation so antithetical to the culture of policing and the police profession on a multitude of levels that his immediate placement on administrative appears to be the first order of the council’s business on October 7 if Goodman does not take action first by voluntarily suspending his status as chief for as long as he must until his need for the pharmaceuticals in question can be set aside.
The Sentinel spoke with individuals at, and surrounding, the heart of the city’s decision-making process in the aftermath of the filing of Goodman’s lawsuit.
“None of this is a surprise,” one said. “We haven’t been properly served yet, as far as I know. I haven’t seen the lawsuit. I saw the precursor – the claim – of course. We rejected that, so we knew a lawsuit was at least possible, but I think most of us hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
Of Goodman, it was said, “He is a smart and very capable professional with a great record in law enforcement. He is highly skilled and educated, a quality guy. She [Ortiz] created a hostile work environment. He just didn’t want to put up with what he had to anymore. In his claim, he said we didn’t stop her from harassing him. I don’t see where we could have done much more than what we did. There is a limitation on what you can do with someone who is elected. She was censured. I had hoped that he would see that she wasn’t really a threat. It’s not like she had control of the council. A majority of the council had his back. Having an enemy or two comes with the territory of working in the public sector. It would have been nice if he could have hung on. He just decided it would be better to sue.”
Goodman’s admission that he is on medication is problematic, the Sentinel was told.
“Sedated?” the official responded when the subject was brought up. “That sounds strong. He is apparently taking some sort of medication. A lot of people function, many at a pretty high level, under different kinds of medication. There are different types of drugs and just because you are medicated doesn’t mean you are incapacitated. If he is taking something that would have a drastic impact, that is something else again. We would need to know what medication is being administered to him and how strong it is. I am not capable of making that kind of determination. I am not a physician. I am sure it will come up during the closed session. I am not sure I or anyone will be able to talk about it, even if he is put on administrative leave.”
There seemed to be a consensus that Goodman is not going to remain in San Bernardino for long. At present, Goodman has the backing of Councilman Ted Sanchez, Councilman Juan Figueroa, Councilman Fred Shorett and Councilwoman Kim Knaus. Sanchez is on his way out, having placed third in the June primary election in the 1st Ward. Shorett is competing to remain in the 4th Ward in the upcoming November election. While Mayor Helen Tran and Goodman treat each other with a professional cordiality in public, there is tension between them. There have been persistent reports that if two or all three of those aligned with her emerge victorious in the 1st Ward, 2nd Ward and 4th Ward elections in November, Tran, with the votes of Ortiz in the 7th Ward and that of Mario Flores in the 6th Ward, would replace Goodman with someone of her choosing.
Goodman may not be interested in remaining in San Bernardino under any realistically foreseeable conditions. At present, he is being paid $376,549.46 in salary along with $30,023 in perquisites and pay add-ons and another $38,801 in benefits. He eclipsed his 34th year in law enforcement last year and is moving toward his 35th year in the profession. Under the retirement formula used by both the California Public Employees Retirement System and the San Bernardino County Employees Retirement Association, both of which apply to him, he is due a pension equal to his highest salary times the number of years he has been employed times 3 percent. Thus, he will receive an annual pension equal to his current salary or greater if he were to immediately retire. Financial considerations are not likely to keep him in place as police chief.
That Goodman consented to Richardson making reference to his use of medication to offset the stress of dealing with Ortiz as an element of his lawsuit is widely seen as an indicator Goodman is ready to retire now.
