The trial of San Bernardino City Councilwoman Treasure Ortiz on charges that she recorded statements made by San Bernardino’s police chief and the president of the police officers’ union less than three months before she was elected to the city council 2024 continued into its second week on Monday and continued for the three days thereafter.
By late Thursday afternoon, the defense had rested and the prosecution had concluded its closing statements. The defense had run through the lion’s share of its closing statement when the clock ran down. The jury is set to hear the conclusion of that presentation next Wednesday, September 9, followed by the prosecution’s rebuttal. At that time the seven-woman, five man panel will move into closed door deliberations to hash out among themselves whether they are to accept the prosecution’s theory of guilt or the defense’s assertion of innocence.
Last week, on Monday, August 24, Deputy District Attorney Carol DiCesare made his opening statement, followed by that of Ortiz’s attorney, Peter Schlueter. Thereafter, for the remainder of August 24, Tuesday August 25, Wednesday August 26 and the morning of August 27, DiCesare put on his case-in-chief against Ortiz. He did so by calling, first, San Bernardino Police Chief Darren Goodman to the witness stand, followed by San Bernardino Police Sergeant Jose Loera, who since 2024 has been the president of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association, followed by District Attorney’s Office Investigator Darnel McDermott.
The testimony elicited by DiCesare from Goodman, Loera and McDermott on direct and then re-direct examination established the events that had proceeded from Goodman having been contacted by Ortiz in November 2023 about assistance members of the police department were lending to the electoral effort of Ortiz’s opponent in the 2024 race, Jim Penman. According to Goodman’s testimony, he downplayed or dismissed those accusations initially and for months thereafter before refocusing on them in July and August of 2024, at which point he called upon Loera to meet with Ortiz to discuss those issues, and that Ortiz, in the company of then-San Bernardino Councilwoman Kimberly Calvin, met with Loera at the DJ Coffee Shop on 40th Street in San Bernardino on August 15, 2024 and, accompanied by San Bernardino-based developer Scott Beard, met with Goodman in a conference room at San Bernardino Police Department headquarters on August 29, 2024. Ortiz recorded those conversations, and the recordings, copies of which Ortiz had provided to McDermott in August 2025, were played for jury.
In their testimony, Goodman and Loera maintained that Ortiz had not informed them that she was recording the conversations and did not obtain from them consent to record the conversations. In his direct examination of Goodman and Loera, DiCesare avoiding exploring what the substance of the discussions were, utilizing the recording to establish the prosecution’s contention that Ortiz had twice violated Penal Code Section 632, a misdemeanor, by violating Goodman and Loera’s privacy in capturing their utterances without their knowledge or permission. McDermott testified that Ortiz had stated to him and another district attorney’s office investigator, Jorge Chavez, that she had informed the police chief and union president she was recording them when she, in fact had not.
Goodman, Loera and McDermott testified that the issue which Ortiz had originally approached Goodman about, wrongdoing on the part of a member or members of the police department, had been thoroughly investigated and it was determined that there was not substance to those allegations.
Efforts by Schlueter during his cross examination of Goodman, Loera and McDermott to bring focus to that allegation of wrongdoing, pertaining to the unauthorized and illegal of a criminal history and investigative data base or data bases to which the police department had access by Steve Desrochers, a former detective with the department who had once been the president of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association, to obtain information that was used in formulating political hit pieces attacking Ortiz during the 2024 campaign season, were frustrated by objections to those questions by DiCesare, which were sustained by Judge Melissa Rodriquez, who is presiding over the trial. In this way, Schlueter was unable to commend the jury’s attention, as was a primary objective in his defense of Ortiz, to the consideration that during their August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2024 exchanges with the Ortiz, they had taken a position diametrically opposite to what they are maintaining now, namely that Desrochers had made illegal use of restricted law enforcement agency network data bases, most pointedly and specifically the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, known by its acronym CLETS.
After the prosecution rested Thursday morning August 27, Schlueter called the first defense witness
On Monday morning, August 31, Schlueter was purposed to pick up where he had left off with Calvin on the previous Thursday. Before that could occur, however, two issues, one of which had been ominously hanging over the proceedings since the previous Thursday, had to be dealt with.
On August 27, Juror 11 had informed a court bailiff that another of the jurors, Juror 5, had made remarks in which she appeared to be expressing an opinion about the credibility and implication of certain evidence or testimony that had been presented thus far. Over the weekend, both the prosecution and the defense found themselves faced with a shake-up on the jury hearing the case or even the potential of a mistrial be declared if there was a determination that misconduct by one or more jurors had tainted the entire panel. The same day, Schlueter, without the jury present, gave notice that he wanted to call Jim Erwin, who was the president of the sheriff’s deputies union more than two decade ago and who is now involved as a political consultant, carrying out electioneering work for various elected officials or candidates for public office. Schlueter said that Erwin could testify about a statement that Goodman had made after Ortiz had filed a claim for damages against the city based on the use of the information gleaned from the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to the effect that Ortiz would regret it or that things would not go well for her if she followed through with a lawsuit based on the allegations in the claim. Judge Rodriguez ordered Erwin to appear in court on Monday morning, August 31 to be subjected to questioning prior to the court’s determination as to whether the jury should hear his testimony.
With the remainder of the jury excluded from the courtroom and waiting in the hallway on Floor 6 of the courthouse, first Juror 11 and then Juror 5, separately, were brought into the courtroom to be questioned by Judge Rodriguez. Juror 11 said that beginning on Wednesday August 26, Juror 5, who is seated during court proceedings in the jury box directly behind her, was leaning forward while she was taking notes about ongoing testimony and, in her words, “mumbling.” Most of the words mumbled by Juror 5 were indistinct, Juror 11, said, but at certain turns in the questioning of District Attorney’s Office Investigator Darnel McDermott and Scott Beard, Juror 11 said, Juror 5’s mouthings were discernible. According to Juror 11, one such pronouncement by Juror 5 came in the aftermath of the playing of the passage in the portion of the August 15, 2024 recording wherein Ortiz says, “Just so we make sure, everything we say to each other, so whatever we talk about, you know what I say, I know what you say.” According to Juror Number 11, while Schlueter was grilling McDermott over how Detective Loera had responded to Ortiz and whether that constituted granting consent to be recorded, Juror Number 5 while leaning forward said “He said he was in.” Juror 11 was somewhat less precise with regard to what other audible statements Juror 5 had made, but indicated one such incident occurred during Beard’s testimony.
Judge Rodriguez ascertained from Juror 11 that Juror 5 was not openly discussing the testimony with other jurors, and seemed to arrive at the conclusion that Juror 5 was “processing” the testimony she was hearing as she was jotting down notes about what was being said in her juror’s notebook. After getting Juror 11’s assurance that despite what she had heard Juror 5 say she would be able to put that to the side and disregard those comments such that they would not impact her ability to fairly weigh and consider the evidence and testimony presented at trial, the judge sent Juror 11 out into the hallway and had Juror 5 ushered into the courtroom.
Judge Rodriguez questioned Juror 5, concentrating on a “comment’ or “comments” which “appear to have been made when the recording was played.” In response to Judge Rodriguez’s question pertaining to whether “Sergeant Loera’s said he was in,” the juror acknowledged she “wrote” something but that “If I did say something out loud, I don’t remember.”
Judge Rodriguez reminded Juror 5 that all of the jurors are not to “verbalize nor express or form any opinions until the attorneys make their closing arguments. We ask that our jurors not form opinions or express preconceived notions about what the evidence tends to show.” Juror 5 said she remained able to consider all of the evidence to be presented and would be able to make a determination untainted by premature judgment. Judge Rodriguez told her, “Make sure you are going to keep an open mind throughout all of the testimony.”
After Juror 5 left the courtroom to return to the hallway, DiCesare made remarks indicating he favored removing Juror 5 from the panel sitting in judgment of Ortiz. Schlueter did not go on the record one way or the other. Judge Rodriguez said, “I am inclined at this point to leave her [in place].”
DiCesare reacted strongly to Schlueter’s effort to elicit testimony from Erwin that suggested Goodman had some built-in animus toward Ortiz. He noted that Schlueter had been inexact about what Erwin had allegedly heard Goodman say, which was represented variously as that Ortiz “would regret it” or things “would not go well” for her. “The defense I manufacturing inconsistencies,” he charged.
More to the point, DiCesare argued, the defense was engaging in “collateral impeachment” of the police chief.
“This, essentially, is dealing with the CLETS [California Law Enforcement Telecommunications system] abuse allegation,” DiCesare said, after having noted Judge Rodriguez had banned testimony and evidence pertaining to that issue in her rulings on the motions in limine prior to the trail. “Courts have extreme latitude to exclude impeachment on parallel matters.”
Judge Rodriquez ruled against Schleuter calling Erwin as a defense witness.
Those issues settled outside the jury’s presence, the bailiff brought the panel, which yet included both jurors 5 and 11, back into the courtroom and testimony, with Calvin on the witness stand, recommenced.
Utilizing photos of the section of DJ Coffee Shop in which Ortiz, Loera and Calvin had been seated, Schlueter brought forth one of a handful of what were perhaps in isolation minor discrepancies or differences in Loera’s recollection of the meeting and its circumstance but which otherwise, collectively, might undercut his contention and that of the prosecution that Ortiz ambushed him by recording their conversation without his informed consent. Whereas Loera’s testimony was that the trio had been seated in a booth closest to the front of the restaurant, Calvin placed them “in the very last booth” in that section. Moreover, according to Calvin, all five of the booths in that side enclave of the eatery had been occupied, whereas Loera had said three of them were empty. The photos displayed showed the relatively close quarters the three were in, with a relatively narrow aisle between the booths on either side, which emphasized how readily a nearby conversation could be listened into.
Despite the different recollection with regard to which booth they were seated in, all three – Loera, Calvin and Ortiz – agreed in their testimony that Loera was sitting looking toward the back of the restaurant with his back to the entrance.
Schlueter asked Calvin if from where she was sitting, she could hear the conversations of those sitting in the nearby booths. Calvin said she could.
To Schlueter’s inquiry with regard to whether Ortiz verbally informed Loera about her recording of the conversation, which was augmented with the playing of that portion of the recording made just as Calvin was approaching the table where Ortiz and Loera were already seated and Calvin seated herself on the side of the booth beside Ortiz, Calvin testified that Ortiz had, after a fashion, given indication that recording was taking place. On that portion of the recording Schlueter played, Ortiz can be heard announcing Calvin’s arrival to Loera, who could not see the councilwoman coming up behind him after she had come into DJ’s front entrance. As Ortiz slides to the side to allow Calvin to sit down, Ortiz can be heard saying on the recording, “Just so we make sure, everything we say to each other, so whatever we talk about, you know what I say, I know what you say.”
“What was she talking about?” Schlueter asked.
“Objection,” DiCesare said.
“Sustained,” Judge Rodriquez ruled.
“Move to strike,” DiCesare motioned. The judge acceded to the request.
Schlueter went at it from a variant angle.
“Simultaneously was she placing her cellphone face up with her hand on the bottom?” he asked.
“She did,” Calvin responded.
Schlueter asked what was visible on the screen of the phone.
“I saw there was a recording button, lines were moving across, indicating it was recording,” Calvin said.
“Did Sergeant Loera say he intended this conversation not to be overheard?” Schlueter asked.
DiCesare’s objection was sustained by Judge Rodriguez.
“During anytime during the conversation you overhead with Sergeant Loera did he…”
“Objection, hearsay, calls for speculation,” DiCesare protested before the question wa completed.
“Sustained,” said Judge Rodriguez.
“At any time did Sergeant Loera indicate to Dr. Ortiz he did not want the conversation recorded?” Schlueter asked.
Judge Rodriguez sustained DiCesare’s objection and his motion to have the question stricken.
“At any time did Sergeant Leora say anything about whether the conversation should not be recorded?” Schlueter asked.
Judge Rodriguez sustained DiCesare’s objection.
“At any time from the time you got there did Sergeant Loera ask you to leave?” Schlueter asked.
“Objection,” DiCesare promulgated.
“Overruled,” responded Judge Rodriguez.
“No, he did not,” said Calvin.
When Schlueter tried to explore whether during the August 15, 2024 conversation, Loera, in his capacity as association president, was trying to express a commitment to transparency in his meeting with Ortiz, his question was met with an objection from DiCesare that was sustained.
Despite the different recollection with regard to which booth they were seated in, all three – Loera, Calvin and Ortiz – agreed in their testimony that Loera was sitting looking toward the back of the restaurant with his back to the entrance.
Calvin went on to say during her testimony that Ortiz held her phone up and said, “Just so we make sure, everything we say to each other, so whatever we talk about, you know what I say, I know what you say,” and Loera looked at Ortiz’s cellphone in what Calvin interpreted as the sergeant’s recognition that he was being recorded, according to the former council member.
In September 2025, when San Bernardino County District Attorney investigators Darnel McDermott and Jorge Chavez questioned Calvin about the August 15, 2024 meeting with Loera, she went through with them how Ortiz had deliberately and openly placed her cellphone on the table.
DiCesare genially and gently at first and then with greater intensity and aggressiveness bordering on hostility cross-examined Calvin, seeking to establish that she was an unreliable witness because of her friendship and identification with Ortiz.
DiCesare began by asking Calvin about her political career, which confined itself to a single term representing San Bernardino’s Sixth Ward on the city council from December 2020 until December 2024. DiCesare was able to get Calvin to freely state that both she and Ortiz had “a strong opinion about the issues [they have] been involved in” and that a factor that brought them together was that they were “not involved in the corruption” that marred the political process in San Bernardino.
In direct response to DiCesare’s questions, Calvin said that she met Ortiz in 2019 and that Ortiz had worked as an unpaid volunteer on Calvin’s 2020 6th Ward campaign walking precincts – in Di Cesare’s words, “knocking on doors” and having “spoke[n] to voters.”
DiCesare brought out that Ortiz later went to work as a grant writer and human resources director for Calvin’s nonprofit Akoma Community Center, an educational program for minority students, officially described in the organization’s charter as “historically excluded youth, families, and communities.” Calvin testified that Ortiz, who is now a professor at Cal State San Bernardino, left the employ of Akoma in January 2025.
DiCesare, leaning further into establishing a political connection explored their relationship during the 2024 electoral cycle, when Ortiz was seeking election to the 7th Ward council position and Calvin was running for reelection in the 7th Ward. Calvin, in response to DiCesare, acknowledged they had supported each other’s candidacy, though she said they were not running as a slate. She admitted that they had practically endorsed each other, although perhaps no officially, as best as she could recall. When DiCesare showed her some campaign literature that had been dredged up but which was not displayed to the jury or those in the gallery, Calvin acknowledged that their endorsement of each other that year had been official. To DiCesare’s inquiry, she responded that she and Ortiz had made a joint appearance on a KCAA Radio show in which they had discussed the issues in the election and their respective campaigns. DiCeare asked if they were debating each other during the radio program. Calvin said they were not.
“During your 2024 campaign, did you and the defendant appear at multiple campaign events together?” DiCesare asked.
“I believe so,” said Calvin.
DiCesare pushed as far as he could along the tangent relating to politics and the alliance between Ortiz and Calvin, asking Calvin if “in 2020 [you] ran against a candidate who was endorsed by the [San Bernardino] Police Officers Association?”
Calvin said she had.
DiCesare then pushed into the province of whether Ortiz had made an explicit disclosure of her recording of the conversation with Loera and had obtained his consent to do so.
In her September 2025 interview with investigators McDermott and Chavez, DiCesare asked, had Calvin used variations on the term “record,” in describing how Ortiz informed Loera at the August 15, 2024 meeting, such as “I’m recording this,” or “We’re on the record,” or the like. Calvin acknowledged that at the September 2025 interview with McDermott and Chavez, she said Ortiz had not specifically used record or any of its variants. DiCesare then utilized that acknowledgment to cast shade on Calvin’s answers to Schlueter during direct examination when she had left the impression that Ortiz had disclosed the recording was taking place and had secured permission to continue with the recording.
DiCesare asked Calvin if Loera had knowingly and willingly been recorded during the August 15, 2024 meeting at DJ Coffee Shop.
“I interpreted it as a ‘yes,’” Calvin said.
“She never verbally said, ‘Can I record you,’ correct?” DiCesare said.
“Verbally, no,” Calvin said.
After establishing that Calvin and Ortiz had travelled to the coffee shop separately, DiCesare half stated/half asked, “You weren’t there when defendant arrived at the restaurant?”
Calvin said she was not there.
DiCesare then maneuvered to attempt to show that Calvin did not have sufficient context to determine what Ortiz’s reference was when she said, “Just so we make sure everything we say to each other. So, so that whatever we talk about, you know what I say, I know what you said.”
“You were not there for first words spoken at the table,” DiCesare said.
Calvin acknowledged that she was not there when Ortiz and Loera began their exchange,
“You don’t know what the defendant did with her phone before you got there,” DiCesare said.
Calvin acknowledged that was the case.
DiCesare then moved into the arena of what Calvin was present to witness at the table where the meeting took place and one of the two recorded conversations that are at the heart of the criminal case against Ortiz.
DiCesare asked Calvin if when she was questioned by McDermott and Chavez in September 2025 she had said that Loera looked up as she was walking up to the booth at the DJ Coffee Shop and Ortiz said, “I invited Councilwoman Calvin.”
Calvin could not recall. DiCesare invited her to look at the transcript of her recorded interview with McDermott and Chavez to refresh her memory. When Calvin looked over the transcript, she agreed that she had had said Loera looked up as she arrived at the table.
Without being explicit about it, what DiCesare seemed to be intent on accomplishing with that line of questioning was to suggest to the jury that Loera had not given acknowledgment of being informed that the recording was ongoing nor his consent, because at the moment Ortiz was displaying her phone with the recording mechanism actuated as she uttered “Just so we make sure everything we say to each other, so that whatever we talk about, you know what I say, I know what you said,” Loera was not looking at Ortiz’s cellphone but rather at Calvin.
DiCesare pressed Calvin on whether Ortiz verbalized a request to record Loera and if she was verbally explicit in informing him that she was recording. Calvin said, “It was implied. I took it as a request from where the phone was and how that statement was made.”
Calvin, picking up on the consideration that as one of the three participants in the conversation at DJ Coffee Shop, she was herself due a warning from Ortiz that she was being recorded and had a choice to decline to speak on the record, if she wished, indicated she understood that her statements and those of Loera were being recorded by Ortiz as a consequence of Ortiz displaying the phone and stating that her intent was for all of them to know what each of them was saying. Calvin said that the conversation was being recorded was demonstrated by “her actions so we were able to see the phone, and we each had the opportunity to say no.”
DiCesare focused on another aspect of Calvin’s September 2025 statements to McDermott and Chavez. DiCesare made an issue of Calvin having told McDerrmott that she or perhaps all three of them present at the August 15, 2024 meeting had breakfast, despite it being 2:45 in the afternoon. Calvin in her testimony suggested she did have breakfast but recalled that Loera had a salad and Ortiz had a sandwich and soup. Later in his re-cross examination of Calvin, DiCesare would return to the issue of Calvin eating lunch in the middle of the afternoon.
Seeking to convey to the jury that Calvin was covering for her friend and associate, DiCesare asked Calvin if she had discussed her testimony, in particular what had occurred at the August 15, 2024 meeting, with Ortiz and how many times she had done so. Calvin acknowledged having potentially spoken to Ortiz about the meeting “more than once” but rejected DiCesare’s suggestion that they discussed the matter ten times, saying that it was more likely the subject of the meeting had come of “less than five times, but possibly that many. We discussed it once, maybe twice, but it wasn’t part of the daily conversation.”
DiCesare likewise sought to suggest through his questioning that Calvin was coloring her testimony in favor of her friend and one-time associate and that she had hedged the truth when she was interviewed by McDermott and Chavez.
“Did you talk to the defendant about the pending interview [with McDermott and Chavez]?” DiCesare asked.
“Yes, a couple times,” Calvin responded.
At various times during the trial, DiCesare has demonstrated that he is acutely conscious that the case against Ortiz for the unlawful recording of Loera is particularly weak vis-à-vis the case against Ortiz for the unlawful recording of Goodman due to multiple factors. Those include:
• That it took place in a public and crowded location;
• That it involved a citizen reporting criminal activity to a police officer;
• That the recording includes a statement by Ortiz – “Just so we make sure everything we say to each other, so that whatever we talk about, you know what I say, I know what you say.” – which arguably could be construed as an alert to Loera that the conversation was being recorded;
• That the recording contains a barely audible response to Ortiz, which upon amplification sounds like Loera uttering, “I’m in.”;
• That both Calvin and Ortiz testified that as Ortiz said, “Just so we make sure everything we say to each other, so that whatever we talk about, you know what I say, I know what you say,” Ortiz was showing her cellphone with the recording mechanism activated to Loera.
For that reason, DiCesare’s need to discredit Calvin is acute.
As he was re-cross examining Calvin at what would in all likelihood be his last opportunity to damage her credibility, DiCesare, took a major risk on a gambit aimed at undercutting Calvin in way that would resonate with the jury. Five months previously, in April 2026, Calvin had gone before the San Bernardino City Council, which was pursuing its own action against Ortiz by voting a measure of censure against her. At that hearing, Calvin had stood up for Ortiz, asserting that the censure was based on falsehoods and erroneous assumptions, including that the criminal charges lodged against her were true. At the April meeting, Calvin stated that she knew the criminal charges, or at least one of them, to be invalid because she had been at the August 15, 2024 meeting with Ortiz and Loera and she had personally witnessed Ortiz give Loera warning that she was recording the meeting.
For DiCesare, bringing up Calvin’s statement in support of Ortiz at the April 2026 city council meeting was, at best, a 50/50 proposition. It contained, he believed, a major inconsistency. At the same time, at face value, it stood as a strong testimonial on behalf of Ortiz, one that might shore Ortiz up rather than take her down. Ultimately, DiCesare gambled, and like Admiral David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay, chose to damn the torpedoes to go right into the tumult and tumble, chaos, cacophony and confusion, smoke and smash of battle to deliver his best shot.
Was it not true, DiCesare asked Calvin, that during a San Bernardino City Council meeting/hearing in April of this year she had publicly stated that Loera knew the August 15, 2024 conversation she had been a part of with Ortiz at DJ Coffeeshop was being recorded?
Indeed, that is what she had publicly stated, Calvin acknowledged. DiCesare then moved in for the kill shot, fixating on Calvin having characterized the meeting – which had kicked off at 2:45 p.m., well beyond the lunch hour, and lasted for nearly an hour and twenty minutes – as a breakfast meeting.
The following day, Tuesday, September 1, at 10:36 a.m., Ortiz took the stand.
Schlueter, through a series of easy questions gently lobbed at his client, sought to at once humanize her and establish her as someone dedicated to being a forthright and conscientious elected official who found herself in a cutthroat environment inhabited by dishonest politicians and both corrupt and lazy governmental employees, extending to the police officers she encountered when she sought to bring the illegal activity she had encountered, some of which consisted of the brutal campaign tactics employed by the police officers’ association against her when she ran against the association’s endorsed candidate.
To Schlueter’s questions, she related that she had grown up in Big Bear, attended and graduated from Big Bear High School and had gotten a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Cal State University San Bernardino, a master’s degree in public administration from Cal State San Bernardino and a doctorate in public administration from the University of California, Irvine.
“What brought you into politics? Schlueter asked.
“I live in a very corrupt city,” Ortiz responded.
She related that she was unsuccessful in her run to represent San Bernrdino’s Third Ward in 2019 as well as in her second political race for San Bernardino mayor in 2022.
She grew civically active, Ortiz said.
“I was attending almost every city council meeting, pulling records, looking at ways of rooting out corruption and misdeeds, getting community updates, attending rallies and getting feedback,” she said.
In this way, she said, she cultivated a reputation as a “political watchdog,” prior to her successful run for 7th Ward councilwoman in 2024.
She indicated she had met Scott Beard in 2020, but that he had not supported her when she ran for city council representing the 3rd Ward in 2019 and he did not back her in the 2022 race for mayor.
She acknowledged that he had been a major donor to her 2024 campaign, having provided her with the maximum amount of money, $4,900, a candidate is allowed to receive from a single donor under the city’s campaign donation limitation ordinance. She said she had been provided with campaign funding by Beard’s wife. She said she was less sure about donations made to her by the Beards’ daughter.
“I know his whole family,” Ortiz said. “She [the Beards’ daughter] may well have [donated to her campaign].”
“As a sitting council member, have you ever voted on any of Scott Beard’s developments?” Schlueter asked.
“I have not,” Ortiz said. “I would not be allowed to. There is a state law that anything six months before or six months after [receiving money from a donor] you have to recuse yourself.”
To Schlueter’s inquiry about Beard’s status as an influential element of the San Bernrdino community and his involvement in local politics, Ortiz said, “He has been involved longer than I have been alive.”
Schlueter next moved into an inquiry relating, by extension, to the use of the law enforcement data base in the 2024 election campaign. He did not get much traction.
“Eventually, you had some concerns about the political process, dirty politicians lying about each other,” Schlueter said. Schlueter then referenced information taken from law enforcement data bases.
“Is that unlawful from your point of view?” he asked.
“Objection,” DiCesare said.
“Sustained,” said Judge Rodriguez.
“Wen did you begin to believe that was something that needed to be reported to the police?” Schlueter asked.
“In November of 2023,” Ortiz responded.
“Who did you report it to?” Schlueter asked.
“Chief Darren Goodman,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz said she had a familiarity with who Goodman, who had been hired as police chief in 2022, was.
Ortiz said a meeting between the two of them was arranged for November 18, 2023.
“At the meeting you discussed issues relating to state assets being used for political purposes?” Schlueter asked.
“That’s correct,” Ortiz responded.
“Was it your understanding that was a criminal act?” Schlueter asked.
“Yes,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz said Goodman indicated to her that if the law enforcement data base had indeed been utilized for political purposes that would be a criminal act.
“During that discussion, did Chief Goodman inform you that he would investigate it?” Schlueter asked. “Yes,” Ortiz said.
“Did you have some specifics about who had done this illegal act?” Schlueter asked.
“I had made references, but I didn’t provide any names,” Ortiz said.
“At the November 18 discussion, did he promise you anything…” Schluester began.
DiCesare sounded an objection.
“Sustained, said Judge Rodriguez.
“Did you get a feeling Chief Goodman appreciated the gravity of the accusations you were making?” Schuester asked.
“Yes,” said Ortiz. “The next day he said he wanted to follow up on what I had said.”
Ortiz finished first in the March 2024 primary election, qualifying to compete in the November 2024 run-off. Ultimately, Ortiz prevailed in that contest and was sworn into office on December 18, 2024.
Before that occurred, however, she had to compete against the second-place finisher in the March 2023 Primary race for the 7th Ward position, former City Attorney Jim Penman, who had originally captured the endorsement of the San Bernardino Police Association.
“Was it your belief that the misconduct you reported was affecting your campaign,” Schlueter asked.
“Objection,” DiCesare interjected.
“Overruled,” said Judge Rodriguez.
“Absolutely,” said Ortiz.
“Is that something you informed Chief Goodman of?” Schlueter asked.
Ortiz testified that she was given no substantive information or feedback about what she had personally related to Goodman on November 18, 2023 and had called the department again in January 2024, but as far as she could tell the investigation was languishing. In July 2024, as the serious electioneering relating to the November election was intensifying, Ortiz renewed eight-months dormant contact she had with Goodman pertaining to the use of the law enforcement data bank in a political context and had a contact from him on August 7 of that year.
When Schlueter asked about whether Scott Beard had become involved in her inquiries about the misuse of the law enforcement data bank, Judge Rodriguez sustained Dicesare’s objection.
“Do you know if Schott Beard had contacted Chief Goodman?” Schlueter asked.
“Objection,” DiCesare said.
“Sustained,” said Judge Rodriguez.
“Do you know why Chief Goodman had not contacted you between January and July?” Schlueter asked.
“Objection,” said DiCesare.
“Sustained,” said Judge Rodriguez.
“Was there some discussion about if San the San Bernardino Police Department did not investigate, the allegations would be brought to another agency?”
“Objection,” said DiCesare.
“Sustained,” said Judge Rodriguez.
“Did you have in mind the allegations being taken to another agency?” Schlueter asked.
Judge Rodriguez overruled DiCesare’s objection. objection overruled
“Yes,” said Ortiz.
Why?” asked Schlueter.
“I was not getting direct answers from the chief of police,” Ortiz said.
“Objection,” said DiCesare.
“Sustained,” said Judge Rodriguez.
At various points during the second week of the trial a contretemps involving the defendant, the defense, the prosecution and Judge Rodriguez broke out over a paradox that has yet to be resolved. It is the prosecution’s contention, which has been supported in most of its dimensions by rulings Judge Rodriguez has made, that the underlying criminal investigation around which Ortiz’s actions revolved and which resulted in the filing of the two misdemeanor charges against her, are beyond the boundaries of what the jury should be considering. The alleged criminal activity to be focused upon during the course of the trial, according to the district attorney’s office, is Ortiz’s recording of the conversations with Goodman and Loera, which are to be considered illegal under Penal Code Section 632, the prosecutors insist, because Ortiz did not have Goodman and Loera’s consent to record them and did not properly inform them she was doing so. That the subject Ortiz was discussing with the police chief and the union president was the allegedly unlawful accessing of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System data base by Desrochers, a detective with the department and a former president of the police officers’ union, should be of no bearing in determining Ortiz’s guilt or innocence, according to Deputy District Attorney DiCesare and District Attorney Jason Anderson. During pretrial hearings, Judge Rodriguez concurred with the district attorney’s office and granted several of what are called motions in limine – requests for the limitation or exclusion of evidence and testimony – brought by the prosecution. Among those motions in limine was that there was to be no overt discussion or even reference to Desrochers’ actions in illegally taping into the law enforcement data base to dig up information on Ortiz that could be used against her in her campaign.
That restriction has created an awkward circumstance all the way around, as both of the recordings at the heart of the case against Ortiz – the ones of the August 15, 2024 conversation and the August 29, 2024 conversation – contain passages in which Loera and Goodman speak about Desrochers’ having accessed the data base in an attempt to obtain damning information regarding Ortiz. More pointedly, both Goodman and Loera state on the recordings what are essentially unequivocal pronouncements that Desrochers was guilty of what he was accused of – illegally accessing the data base and using the information for an illegitimate purpose unrelated to enforcing the law, namely as campaign fodder against Ortiz. The jurors heard both recordings, but have not been provided with the context to assimilate what the implication of those statements is. Worse yet, in their testimony, both Goodman, to a greater extent, and Loera, to a somewhat lesser extent, outright contradicted their recorded statements with regard to Desrochers’ action in accessing the law enforcement data base. Goodman, in particular, in the August 29, 2024 recording, can be heard stating that if Desrochers were still working for the department and was not retired, he would as police chief not only terminate him but see to it that he was prosecuted. Loera, on the August 14, 2024 recording, speaking as the president of the police officers association, refers to the misuse of the law enforcement data base for political purposes as one of “the sins of our forefathers,” meaning former police union officials, of whom Desrochers was one.
The case the district attorney’s office has put together against Ortiz is highly reliant on the testimony of both Goodman and Loera, who are, in addition to being the victims of Ortiz’s alleged crime, also the primary witnesses. The motions in limine filed by the prosecution and granted by Judge Rodriguez prevent Schlueter from vectoring the jury’s attention to the discrepancy between Goodman’s and Loera’s testimony and what they said during the course of the recordings, which is doubly crippling to Ortiz’s defense. First, this circumstance precludes impeaching Goodman Loera as witnesses, because the contradiction between their claims on the witness stand that no investigation into Desrochers and his action had been carried out in 2024 and that he was subsequently cleared when that investigation was concluded in 2025 cannot be compared to their pronouncements of Desrochers’ guilt in 2024. Secondly, Schlueter and Ortiz have been deprived of being able to provide a compelling illustrating of the rationale for making the recordings: stated straightforwardly, that Ortiz could not simply rely on verbal statements and assurances that the police chief and union president would provide her in private, since they could, as they have now apparently done, change their story and rely on their credibility as sworn law enforcement officers to deny they had said what she claimed, leaving her in the position of having to document what they said by recording it.
There were other motions in limine granted by Judge Rodriguez, another one of which manifested problematically during testimony this week.
In addition to approaching Goodman about a member or members of the police department accessing the State of California’s shared law enforcement data base and using that information in a political context in November 2023 and again on multiple occasions in 2024, Ortiz had also contacted the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the matter in 2025. The district attorney’s office’s investigation of Ortiz’s complaint was handled, in the main, by two of its investigators, Darnel McDermott and Jorge Chavez. It so happens that the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is involved in a cooperative operation with the FBI through the FBI’s Office of Partner Engagement program. The district attorney’s office’s liaison to the FBI is Investigator Jorge Chavez.
In May 2025, Ortiz, who was unaware of the FBI/San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office involvement in the Partner Engagement program, had contacted both the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit and the FBI, separately. The district attorney’s office directed her to fill out a digitized complaint form. In response to her approach to the FBI, that agency had made a show of interest in the issue[s] she had contacted it about. She then provided the local FBI task force assigned to investigate crimes or alleged crimes involving governmental entities, agencies and governmental officials with a flash drive that consisted of evidence she believed to be probative of the misuse of governmental assets such as the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System for political purposes, including copies of the recordings of her August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2024 conversations with Loera and Goodman. In San Bernardino County, that task force is manned by FBI Agent C.J. Sanders, who works in coordination with Chavez. Roughly three-and-a-half months later, Ortiz contacted the district attorney’s office to prompt it to look into her report. During the course of that exchange, she was asked if she had any evidence to augment her report. She then provided the district attorney’s office a flash drive with the materials she had provided to the FBI, including the recordings. It would be the district attorney’s office’s examination of those recordings which led to the filing of the criminal case against her.
One of the motions in limine pertained to any mention of Ortiz’s report to the FBI with regard to the Desrochers/California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System access or her cooperation with the FBI.
It is the defense’s contention that the recordings Ortiz is charged with have illegally made were legally and properly obtained and that she had freely turned them over to the district attorney’s office is not just an indication that she did nothing illegal but proof of her innocence, as she would not have turned over to the prosecutor’s office evidence that she had broken the law if, in fact, she had recorded the conversations with Leora and Goodman, without their knowledge and consent. In angling to establish otherwise, DiCesare through his questioning of McDermott, had sought to demonstrate that Ortiz had delayed making the recording of Loera available to the district attorney’s office for over a year after it was made and held off on providing the recording of Goodman conversation for nearly a year after it was made. When Ortiz took the witness stand to testify in her own defense on direct examination by Schluester, she made herself subject to DiCesare’s cross examination. DiCesare saw that as an opportunity to nail down his contention that Ortiz had not been forthcoming with the recordings.
With Ortiz on the witness stand, Schluester delved into that topic. She had not made the recording available to the district attorney’s office until August 2025, Schuester stated more than asked. That was not so, Ortiz responded. She had made it available to the district attorney’s office more than three months earlier, in May, she said.
Schluester contradicted, marshaling a recitation of the testimony provided by McDermott and documentation showing that the recording had not been dropped off at the district attorney’s office until August 2025.
At that point, Ortiz came straight out with her explanation – Chavez had been present when she handed one of the flash drives over to the FBI team. That, in turn, sent Judge Rodriguez into orbit. Shortly thereafter, outside the presence of the jury, Judge Rodriguez sharply rebuked Ortiz, telling her that she damn well knew about the motions in limine that had been granted, as she had been present throughout the entirety of the trial and the hearings on pre-trial motions.
Up until that point, the jury had been kept in the absolute dark with regard to the FBI being involved in the case and had no grounds to know or suspect that a federal agency was previously or may yet be looking into Desrochers and other members of the police department, extending, theoretically, to include Loera and Goodman. This clashes head-on with District Attorney Jason Anderson’s and Deputy District Attorney DiCesare’s prosecutorial theory, one respected and so far honed by Judge Rodriguez, that wrongdoing by anyone else, including the two alleged victims in the crime Ortiz is charged with, and the consideration that Ortiz in committing the crimes she has been charged with was attempting to document or prove that those crimes were occurring are irrelevant to the consideration of Ortiz’s guilt.
Ortiz, of course, took an oath to tell the truth and the whole truth when she was sworn in before testifying. When she lived up to that oath by responding to DiCesare’s repetitive questions, Judge Rodriguez’s anger was vectored at her, the defendant, rather than at DiCesare, the prosecutor, who presumably knew the answer to the question he was posing to Ortiz, as he already knows the answers to the vast majority of questions he poses during both direct examinations and cross examinations.
In this way, Jorge Chavez, the phantom investigator whom the jury never saw nor heard from, who is a district attorney’s investigator but is not a district attorney’s investigator, who is an FBI agent but is not an FBI agent, remains a phantom. Whether his ethereal presence was felt by all, some or none of the members of the jury when Ortiz mentioned him in the face of a hard-charging prosecutor who was implying or insinuating or insisting she was lying when she was doing the best she could to tell the truth she was sworn to serve under an extremely nuanced circumstance in which she was restricted with regard to what she could say is known only by the jurors, with whom no one is at liberty at present to speak. Perhaps, the mysterious Jorge Chavez occupied their attention and focus for mere seconds and is now gone, maybe forever with no chance of any second thought or apparition. On the other hand, if the specter of Jorge Chavez yet lives in the mentation of three or four of the jurors or that of two or three or as few as one or two or even just one, that spirit of mystery might usher in his cousin, the sprint of doubt, the bane of prosecutors.