(October 11)  In the aftermath of his guilty plea to a single count of felony conflict of interest, former Upland city manager Robb Quincey has been given a 180-day weekend jail sentence that will likely entail him serving little or no actual jail time.
On September 9 Quincey entered a no contest plea to one count of conflict of interest, bringing to a close the case lodged against him by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office in 2012.
Dismissed as a consequence of the plea arrangement worked out between Quincey’s attorney, Michael Zwieback, and prosecutors were two additional charges, perjury and embezzlement/falsification by a public officer.
The case against Quincey, who was handpicked in 2005 by now-disgraced former Upland Mayor John Pomierski to serve as city manager, in some measure grew out of the circumstances leading to Pomierski’s 2011 indictment. Pomierski had been engaged in using his authority as an elected city official to shake down individuals with pending business at City Hall, including developers who had applied for project approval thorough the city’s land use process. Pomierski arranged for Quincey to receive a base salary and add-ons of $368,529 with benefits of $92,096, for a total annual compensation of $460,625, making him among the highest paid city managers in the state. Quincey was also empowered with the authority to fire the city’s department heads entirely at his own discretion. The ebb and flow of project approval in the City of Gracious living that was favorable to project proponents who had hired Pomierski as a project consultant and less than favorable to those who were not paying Pomierski directly or supportive of his political efforts raised suspicions about Quincey’s involvement in Pomierski’s depredations.
Ultimately, Quincey was undone when in June 2010 FBI agents serving search warrants relating to the graft that Pomierski was involved in panicked Quincey, who unburdened himself to city attorney Bill Curley of a secret relating to a July 27, 2008 domestic violence incident involving himself and his former fiancé, Jennifer Stelzer. That incident was punctuated by  Quincey’s alleged vandalism to Stelzer’s car and a series of profanity-laced text messages to her.  A police report on that incident was written by Upland police detective Craig Sipple under the supervision of then-sergeant John Moore. That eight-page police report recommending that the matter be reviewed by the district attorney’s office for possible prosecution was intercepted by then-police chief Steve Adams .
Consequently, the eight-page report Sipple originally authored was reduced to six pages and Sipple and Moore’s recommendation that the matter be referred to the district attorney’s office was changed to state that the case was given “Exceptional Clearance. Stelzer does not desire prosecution.” The redrafted six-page version of the report was buried in an inactive police department file that prevented it from being open to public scrutiny.
When Moore later applied for one of two open lieutenant posts with the department and was passed over, he retained the services of attorney Dieter Dammeier of the law firm Lackie Dammeier McGill & Ethir to represent him. Dammeier worked out a solution to the problem by which Quincey and Adams upped the number of captain positions with the department from two to three, promoted a lieutenant into that new spot, thereby creating another lieutenant vacancy, into which Moore was promoted. Dammeier presented the city with a $57,816 bill for his efforts on behalf of Moore. To keep the matter quiet and from coming to the attention of the city council and the public, Quincey used his maximum $25,000 annual discretionary spending authority as city manager to pay Dammeier’s firm in two $25,000 installments, one in the midst of the 2009-10 fiscal year on January 25, 2010, and another shortly after the initiation of the 2010-11 fiscal year on August 23, 2010.
According to former city attorney Curley, Quincey persuaded then-assistant finance director Ruby Carrillo, with whom Quincey was intimately involved, to miscode one of those checks to make it appear that the payment had been made for another police department-related matter the city was negotiating with the police union, specifically payment to officers for the time they spent just before their daily assignments donning their uniforms and the time after their shifts ended doffing their uniforms.
After Quincey’s panicked confession to him about what had occurred, Curley informed the FBI of what Quincey had told him. For nearly five months Quincey remained in place as city manager, but  after details relating to the train of events involving Quincey, Stelzer, Moore and Dammeier became public, the Upland City Council in January 2011 suspended Quincey and  placed him on paid administrative leave. Four months later, two months after Pomierski’s indictment, Quincey was terminated.
Quincey sued for wrongful termination and in the course of the hearings related to that suit, Quincey made what the district attorney’s office latter said were false statements, amounting to perjury.
While the perjury charge and that of embezzlement were dismissed, a felony conflict of interest by a public officer conviction was entered into the court record against him on September 9 as a result of a plea bargain.
On October 10, Judge Shahla Sabet sentenced him to serve 180-days in weekend custody at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore, stipulated three years probation and further memorialized a term of the plea bargain, to wit, that Quincey will make restitution of $50,000 to the city of Upland.  He has already put up $25,000 of that sum and will provide the rest by June 30, 2015.
Sabet further restricted Quincey from accepting or maintaining any employment position in which he would have access to city funds without prior notice to that employer of the nature of the offense he was convicted of and he is required to submit written proof to the probation officer signed by the employer within 10 days of employment. Quincey is prohibited from associating with Pomierski or any other felons  and he is not allowed to have a firearm or leave the country. He is not allowed to leave California  without first obtaining written permission of the probation officer, although Sabet granted him permission to travel to Minnesota.on the proviso that when departing and upon returning he is to advise the probation department.
Because of overcrowding at the sheriff’s detention facilities, including Glen Helen, as well as the non-violent nature of his offense, Quincey is very likely to be excused from actually being incarcerated at Glen Helen and will instead be consigned to home detention with an ankle monitor.