By Mark Gutglueck
Over three days during the 15th week of the Charles Merritt murder trial, the defense pressed to further unravel that element of the state’s case pertaining to the defendant’s presence at the McStay family home on the night of the gruesome murders.
Charles “Chase” Merritt is charged with killing the McStay family – Joseph McStay, Sr., 40, his wife Summer, 43, and the couple’s two sons, Gianni, 4, and Joseph, Jr., 3 – an event that prosecutors say occurred in the evening of February 4, 2010.
Merritt, the prosecution maintains, driven by financial desperation that grew out of his unbridled gambling addiction and utter lack of fiscal discipline, engaged in a series of thefts from Earth Inspired Products, a company owned and operated by his business associate, Joseph McStay, Sr. Through that company, Joseph McStay was selling high end decorative water features – artificial waterfalls and fountains – which he and Merritt designed and which Merritt manufactured out of steel, glass, rock and other components based upon the specifications outlined by the company’s customers and passed along to Merritt by McStay. The prosecution’s theory, presented during the initial nine weeks of the trial that began on January 7 of this year, is that Merritt fraudulently obtained access to the QuickBooks accounting system McStay had set up for the Earth Inspired Products enterprise and on February 1 and February 2, 2010 wrote himself $7,495 worth of checks.
When he learned of what Merritt was up to, either shortly before or perhaps even on February 4, 2010, Joseph McStay traveled to Rancho Cucamonga, where Merritt was then living, and confronted him about his larceny, threatening to alert authorities, prosecutors allege. After Joseph McStay returned to the home he shared with his family in Fallbrook in north San Diego County, the prosecution’s theory continues, Merritt that evening drove to the McStay residence, where he slaughtered the McStays, using a three-pound sledgehammer to bash their skulls in.
Merritt then secreted the bodies for two days, in the meantime again fraudulently accessing Joseph McStay’s QuickBooks account for Earth Inspired Products, the prosecution maintains, and on February 4, 2010, February 5, 2010 and again on February 8, 2010 issued himself checks made out to himself for a total of $23,855.
On February 6, 2010, Merritt transported the corpses up into San Bernardino County’s High Desert, an area with which Merritt was familiar from having grown up in Hesperia where he attended Apple Valley High School for three years in the 1970s, according to prosecutors. There, in a remote area between Victorville and Oro Grande he buried all four of his victims along with murder weapon in two six-foot long, two-foot wide and 18-inch deep graves he dug in a wash off a rarely-traveled dirt road, according to the prosecution. To confuse the situation, throw authorities off his track and delay a serious investigation into the matter, the prosecution maintains, Merritt then drove the McStay family’s 1996 Isuzu Trooper, which yet contained the child seats for Gianni and Joseph, to San Ysidro, where he left the vehicle in a shopping center parking lot roughly a quarter of a mile from the Mexican border.
In formulating its narrative of Merritt’s guilt, the prosecution wedded itself to the assertion that Merritt drove from his residence in Rancho Cucamonga to the McStay family’s residence in the late afternoon or early evening of February 4, 2010, where, inside that home he carried out the murders.
From the outset of the trial, which began with opening arguments on January 7, the defense has seized upon that assertion, controverting at every opportunity the prosecution’s contention that Merritt was at the McStay home the night of February 4, the strongest evidence for which is a grainy video from a neighbor’s security camera, which at 7:47 pm captured an image of a vehicle coming out of the McStay home’s driveway the district attorney’s office says was Merritt’s work truck. The defense maintains that assertion does not hold up under an exacting technical analysis of the video, and it has further excoriated the prosecution and several of its witnesses over the lack of any physical evidence to support the contention that the family was killed in the Fallbrook home.
Using two expert witnesses, both of whom boast impeccable credentials as former law enforcement officers or associated professionals themselves, including one who spent three decades with the agency that investigated the McStay homicides, the defense sought to reinforce with the jury the contention that the homicidal scenario at the core of case against Merritt is not only implausible but inconsistent with the evidence the prosecution itself has presented at trial.
To controvert the prosecution’s supposition that the McStay family was killed within the premises of their home, located at  3473 Avocado Vista Lane in Fallbrook, the defense summoned Randolph Beasley to the witness stand on Monday. The founder and owner of Seekfirst Forensic Consulting,  Beasley was employed for 30 years as a forensic and crime scene specialist with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in its scientific investigations division, colloquially known as the department’s crime lab. Beasley processed hundreds of homicide cases in addition to other crimes and officer involved shootings, and his testimony was instrumental in obtaining convictions against hundreds of criminals. His skills included crime scene reconstruction, photography, latent fingerprint processing and comparisons, collection and preservation of physical evidence, shooting scene reconstruction and bloodstain pattern analysis. During the latter half of his career with the sheriff’s department, Beasley trained the technicians and specialists working for the department’s scientific investigations division and administered proficiency tests for the department’s crime scene personnel in the disciplines of crime scene processing and bloodstain pattern analysis. Since 2001, he has taught various courses and workshops related to crime scene analysis and forensic science on behalf of the International Association for Identification, the California Department of Justice, California Association of Criminalists, and for assorted law enforcement agencies.
More than a week after the family vanished, Joseph McStay’s brother, Michael, sojourned to Fallbrook on February 13, 2010 to rendezvous with Merritt and go to the McStay family home, into which the family had moved in November 2009. There, he and Merritt intended to see if the family, from whom they had not heard for nine days, was perchance there or otherwise see if they could locate something to indicate where they might be. After crawling through a closed but apparently unlatched window at the the rear of the house, Michael McStay encountered an eerily abandoned house from which it appeared the family had made an abrupt and perhaps unexpected exodus, which included having left the family’s dogs unattended in the backyard for days. Hopefully thinking the family might have departed for an impromptu and unannounced vacation for the Valentine’s Day weekend, Michael McStay elected to let two further days pass before alerting the authorities. On February 15, Michael McStay contacted the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and again drove to Fallbrook, meeting with then-Deputy Michael Tingley. After again gaining access to the home, Michael McStay and Tingley went through the house room by room, while Tingley used his cell phone to take seven photos of the internal premises. Four days later, the family had yet to return. By that point, San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Detective Troy DuGal, who was investigating the matter ostensibly as a multiple missing persons case, had obtained a warrant and with a team of sheriff’s department investigators and evidence technicians, augmented by investigators from the State of California’s Department of Justice, searched the home, looking for clues as to what had happened, any evidence that might be useful, while making an extensive photographic documentation of the house.
Unremarked by the law enforcement professionals while they were at the scene, but noticed by by a member of the San Bernardino County investigative/prosecutorial team years later, indeed after Merritt had already been charged with the homicides, was that when a close-up spection was made of certain photos of the round wooden table in the McStay family dining/family room on the ground floor of the house near the kitchen, there were round splotches visible on its top surface, as well as on the table’s wooden legs. By the time Merritt’s trial began early this year, the contents of the McStay home, including its furnishings, were no longer available, which obviated the possibility of determining if the splotches visible in the photos were above or below the varnish. Also lost was the opportunity, if they were indeed on top of the table’s finish, to subject those splotches to an analysis to determine whether they were blood.
During the initial stages of the trial when the prosecution was presenting its side of the case, during the testimony of DuGal as well as the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department evidence technician who had gathered evidence from the McStay family home during the February 19, 2010 search, Denys Williams, enlarged photos of the table were displayed, during which questioning ensued that was meant to suggest to the jury that the red spots were blood spattered during Merritt’s homicidal frenzy.
This week, with Beasley on the witness stand as a defense witness, Merritt’s co-defense counsel, James McGee, asked him if he looked into how furniture is stained and then varnished.
“I did an investigation – I did an experiment on or actually checked into research of how furniture staining is done specific to how spatter effect becomes a part of a furniture finish like I noticed and observed on my wood dining room table,” Beasley said.
Beasley indicated, while side by side comparisons of the photo of the McStay family dining table were made with his household furniture, that splotches – which Beasley referred to as spatters – of stain are a common element of wood staining, and that the stain is not applied in a uniformly even coat. Beasley’s furniture appeared to be stained with a slightly lighter color than the McStay family’s table, which was coated with a reddish brown stain. Upon a close-up examination, the splotches on the McStay family table appeared to be similar in color as the stain, though of a darker shade.
Beasley said he determined that when the wooden circular family room/dining room table was viewed under “certain lighting conditions,” the splotches were apparent.
Beasley said in his analysis he “began with the possibility it could be blood,” but said that without the ability to actually carry out presumptive tests using reagents and then further more exacting tests he could not say with any certainty whether they were blood or not.
With a close focus on one of the photos of the table displayed on the courtroom’s overhead monitors, Beasley identified 33 reddish brown stains visible on a portion of the table top, seven on the left leg of the table and eight on the leg to the right. On the white floor below the table or next to it, Beasley pointed out, there were no reddish brown spatter stains visible. He further noted that there were no stains observed on any of the items on the table, which included a knit hat, a remote control, a dog leash and a calculator.
That the spatter did not extend beyond the wood of the table was an indication that it was likely not blood, Beasley said.
“I would expect to see [blood] spatter on the floor unless there was something obstructing that area of the floor or of course the floor had been cleaned up.”
Beasley said that “based on the consideration there was dirt and grime on the floor beneath and around the table, the floor had not been cleaned sufficiently to remove any stain pattern that would have been on the floor.”
Moreover, there was no visual evidence to suggest the chairs that were seen in photographs around the table had any splotches or spatters on them. Those chairs, which had cushions, were otherwise made of wood stained with a much lighter non-reddish brown pigment. No spatter was visibly evident on the cushions.
Beasley said the splotches were “more visible in photos where glare does not obscure it.” He used a photo of a wood chair he owns that was stained and varnished to demonstrate the phenomenon of stain spattering.
“On my own personal wood furniture, I have the same stains on a chair which again appear to be similar in size and appearance,” he said. Under differing lighting schemes, he said, the splotches or spatters grew more apparent or disappeared altogether. When an intense source of light reflected off the glossy varnish, Beasley said, the glare obscured the splotches. This was an indication, he said, that the dark red-brown spatter was below the varnish, and was therefore stain, not blood.
“Based on this glare, did you start to develop a hypothesis of what you were seeing on the chair?” McGee asked about Beasley’s observations of the spattering he had seen on his own furniture.
“The hypothesis was that when the chair was manufactured as a piece of wood furniture, as I have most often investigated furniture, a topcoat of polyurethane or some other type of substance is used to coat the surface,” Beasley said. “Therefore any stain antiquing-type spatter is underneath that topcoat of polyurethane or whatever and then the glare of light, whether it’s sunlight or any other light, the glare is going to reflect on the surface of the polyurethane of that topcoat and therefore, as observed not cause anything underneath that topcoat to be visualized.”
To test his hypothesis Breasley said he then exposed his chair to a substantial spatter of a liquid which replicated the color, viscosity and characteristics of blood when dried, spattering this ersatz blood onto his chair from a distance of approximately two feet, thereafter noting that under lighting conditions in which there was no glare the replicant blood spatters were visible on the surfaces of the chair as was wood stain spatter that was part of the wood stain finish. Thereafter he photographed the chair in lighting conditions that included glare, whereupon the photos showed that the fake blood spatters above the topcoat of the finish were yet visible in the glare but the stain spatters underneath the chair’s finish were not.
“So based on your review of the photographs from the McStay home, the experiment you did on your own furniture that had similar red stains, were you able to draw a conclusion as to the reddish brown stains that were seen on the table inside the Fallbrook house?” McGee asked.
“Yes,” said Beasley.
“And what is your conclusion and opinion?” McGee asked.
“My opinion after doing all of these experiments and making my observations is that it is not blood that’s on the surface, it’s not anything that’s on the surface, it’s underneath the topcoat, which is why it’s not visible,” Beasley said. “I did not see the red brown stains in the reflection through the glare.”
During his direct examination of Beasley, McGee dealt with other issues relating to whether the murders had occurred inside the Fallbrook house.
“You earlier said you saw no signs of damage to the house with the doors, walls, windows, no sign of blood, there was no sign of blood spatter. Do you have an opinion of whether or not any violent acts occurred within that house?” McGee asked.
“No violent acts that would have caused bloodshed in a way that would be consistent with blunt force trauma,” responded Beasley. “There could be other violent acts, but just not that would cause bloodshed.”
“There are different places of the walls that are bare of pictures or drapes or anything,” said McGee. “There was paint in the house. What if someone just painted over blood spatter? Is that still detectable?”
“Potentially it is, yes,” said Beasley.
“And how’s that?” asked McGee.
”Using an alternate light source, there is a potential of blood, if there’s enough blood on the surface, and it’s painted over, the alternate light source on its own could have that blood absorb the light so it could be visible, potentially, underneath the paint itself,” Beasley said. “You can see that shadowing through the paint.”
McGee asked Beasley, “In reviewing the pictures that were taken on February 19 [2010], did you highlight some for what you felt they do not show?”
Beasley said he had, and thereafter McGee displayed on the courtroom’s overhead monitors 20 photos taken during the San Diego Sheriff’s Department serving of the search warrant for the McStay home on February 19, 2010 along with the seven photos taken by Deputy Tingley on February 15.
Those photos were taken at various spots around the house, including Joseph McStay’s home office, the bedrooms, a large walk in closet, a bathroom, the family room/dining room area as viewed from a position on the stairs, the dining room, the home’s entryway, the living room, the kitchen and the garage.
“Did you notice some things you were not seeing in these photographs?” McGee asked. “Yes,” responded Beasley.
“Please describe to the jury some things you are not seeing you would look for,” McGee said.
“Blood evidence, and specific to really any kind of blood pattern, wipe stains, swipe stains, impact patterns, along with drip stains and a drip trail to indicate that either someone was bleeding at a scene or someone had suffered blunt force trauma within the house somewhere,” Beasley said. “I did not observe any of that type of blood.”
“Did you see any damage to the walls?” McGee asked.
“No,” said Beasley.
“The door?” McGee asked.
“No,” said Beasley.
The windows?” McGee asked.
“No,” said Beasley.
“Flooring?” McGee asked
“No,” said Beasley.
“Anything on the surfaces that were consistent in your experience with major blunt force trauma?” McGee asked.
“No,” Beasley said.
“Anything in that house stand out as a clear indication of extensive violence occurring in that home?” McGee asked.
“No,” Beasley said.
With three photos of the garage in which a multitude of items were stored and stacked displayed on the courtroom’s monitors, McGee asked, “Did you see any kind of swipe pattern or transfer stain or drip trail inside the garage?”
“I did not,” Beasley said.
“If an individual is struck in the skull and the skull injuries would cause lacerations and blood loss, and someone is struck in the head again, with the same item, the same object, would blood spatter result from the secondary or consecutive strike?” McGee asked.
“Yes,” said Beasley. “The first blow that causes a laceration would then result in blood on that person’s head. The second, third, fourth and fifth impacts, I would expect to see impact patterns. As long as it’s close enough to a wall, it will be [on] the wall, or furniture. If it’s in the middle of the room, it may only be on the floor, but I would expect it to go several feet based on the object used and the severity of the laceration.”
“Would you also expect cast-off spatter?” McGee asked, referencing blood from the weapon that would be flung when the weapon was wielded for follow-up strikes.
“Cast-off is possible,” said Beasley. So, I would certainly expect it, but it doesn’t always occur.”
And where would you generally look for cast-off blood evidence?” McGee asked.
“I would look for cast-off on items of furniture, on the walls and even on the ceiling, because I have seen cast-off stains on all of those surfaces,” Beasley said.
“And if an individual suffered the injuries as I described, if they were moved after suffering those injuries, would you expect to see things like the drip trail?” McGee asked.
“Yes, I would.
“And if a body were bleeding extensively from head wounds, and they’re placed inside a vehicle, would you expect to see blood transfer inside the vehicle?” McGee asked.
“Yes, I would,” said Beasley
In the case of a bludgeoning attack of the like that was inflicted on the McStay family victims, Beasley said he would have expected blood spatter on the perpetrator “from head to toe” and most prominently on the assailant at a spot “closest to the victim’s chest and stomach area.” Beasley said someone wielding a sledgehammer to beat someone else about the head would likely also have blood on his “sleeves, pants, shoes.” He said the murderer’s feet or shoes would come into contact with blood that would be tracked around and would very likely end up inside any vehicle the perpetrator then got into. “I would expect to find blood on the door handle, the floor board, the seat, gearshift, steering wheel,” he said. “Blood can be transferred to anywhere that is touched in the operation of that motor vehicle.”
Beasley had prepared a video to show the fashion in which blood spatter occurs, lining the walls of a ten foot-by-ten-foot room with butcher paper and then affixing on two-by-four pedestals at varying heights sponges soaked with red colored liquid to replicate the appearance of blood. He then struck the sponges with a three-pound sledgehammer to illustrate how far and it what direction the spatter would project. Judge Michael A. Smith denied the defense’s motion to play the video for the jury. Judge Smith nonetheless ruled that Beasley could explain different types of blood patterns that occur and, based on his training, experience and expertise along with the photographs of, or descriptions of the scene at, the McStay family home, offer an opinion if the types of blunt force known to have been administered to the McStay family is consistent with the injuries the victims suffered having occurred at the house. Judge Smith also allowed Beasley to make a series of physical demonstrations of examples of contact, cast-off, wipe, swipe, drip and impact spatter within the courtroom in front of the jury box.
Under cross examination by Supervising Deputy District Attorney Sean Daugherty, Beasley testified he was charging $175 per hour for his work and $87.50 per hour for his travel time, and had billed $22,400 for his work for 128 hours between 2015 and October 2018, and had yet to bill for the approximately 157 hours of work done on the case since October 2018. Since retiring from the sheriff’s department, Beasley testified, he had not renewed his licensing as a crime scene analyst and a blood stain examiner.
Daugherty, picking up on the drift of McGee’s questioning of Beasley with regard to what he did not see in the photographs of the McStay home in the near aftermath of the family’s disappearance, explored the degree to which he viewed or did not view the presence of towels, bathmats and robes in the home to be significant, given that fabric around Joseph McStay in the grave was similar to a towel, bathmat or robe.
The presence of that material in the grave was an indication that the family was killed in the home, Daugherty endeavored to suggest.
Daugherty tested whether Beasley recollected previous expert testimony during the trial provided by Diana Wright, a forensic examiner and chemist with the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Virginia as to whether paint found on a bra presumed to be that of Summer McStay in her grave matched paint on the sledgehammer also found in the grave which is presumed to be the murder weapon. Beasley responded that he could not remember.
“The fact that the paint on the hammer is consistent with the paint on the bra, you don’t remember that as you sit here today,” Daugherty said.
“I don’t remember what the expert’s opinion is, since it may be consistent with and maybe it’s included as something that could be the same,” Beasley said. “I remember hearing her testimony but I don’t know what her opinion was. I’m sure it’s in her report.”
“You don’t remember, right?” Daugherty said.
“Correct,” Beasley said.
“Because it’s not consistent with nothing happening in the home,” Daugherty said.
“Objection, argumentative,” protested McGee.
“Sustained,” said Judge Smith.
“That could be consistent with something happening in the home,” Daugherty persisted.
“Objection, argumentative and speculation,” McGee said.
“Overruled,” Judge Smith said. “He can answer if he has an opinion.”
“So, specifically something happening in the home related to someone with paint on their hands making contact with the sledgehammer?” Beasley responded, the inflection of his voice at the end of the sentence transitioning the statement into a question.
“Well, the fact that the same paint on the bra matches the paint on the hammer,” Daugherty said.
“Objection, misstates the testimony,” McGee said.
“Sustained,” Judge Smith said.
“That’s what the FBI person testified to, Your Honor,” Daugherty said.
“She did not,” McGee said sharply. “She never said it was a match and I move to strike counsel’s question.”
“Objection is sustained,” Judge Smith said.
“My apologies,” Daugherty said. “So, let’s say the paint on the hammer and the paint on the bra are consistent with each other, and we know the McStay family was painting at the time of their murder. That would all be consistent with something happening in the house potentially, right?”
“Potentially, yes,” Beasley said. “Specifically, it’s just something with paint on it made contact with the sledgehammer. It could have been anything with paint on it.”
“Is the drip pattern consistent with her standing when the paint was applied to the bra?” Daugherty asked.
“Objection,” said McGee. “Assumes facts not in evidence, that she was wearing it.”
“Overruled,” said Judge Smith. “He can answer if he has an opinion.”
“I would not want to make an opinion,” Beasley said. “To me it would not be correct unless I looked at the bra to confirm the flow pattern of paint as it relates to location on the bra.”
“But you looked at the bra in person,” said Daugherty.
“I did,” Beasley said
“Objection as argumentative,” interjected McGee.
“Overruled,” Judge Smith said.
“So, why didn’t you make that determination?” Daugherty asked.
“Why didn’t I?” Beasley said.
“Yeah,” said Daugherty.
“I wasn’t requested to do so,” Beasley said.
To Daugherty’s questions, Beasley acknowledged that a mass of material extracted from one of the graves appeared to have blue painter’s tape intertwined in it and that he had noted in photographs of the McStay home that there was blue painter’s tape there. He acknowledged as well that a paintbrush and a child’s robe depicted in photographs entered as evidence in the case appeared to be consistent with items found in the graves. To Daugherty’s questions, Beasley acknowledged that all of those items were things that could have been missing from the McStay home.
“So, when you were asked, when you were looking for something that’s missing, you didn’t mention those items we just went through, right?” Daugherty asked.
“Objection, misstates his testimony and also goes beyond the scope,” McGee said.
“Objection sustained as misstating his testimony,” Judge Smith said.
“Well, you looked at photographs of the McStay residence, right?” Daugherty asked.
“Yes,” said Beasley.
“And you saw items in person and you saw items from the grave in this case, right?” Daugherty asked.
“Yes,” Beasley acknowledged.
“You didn’t note the items in the grave that are consistent with what would have been in the McStay home,” Daugherty said.
“Objection, argumentative,” McGee said.
“Overruled,” Judge Smith said.
“Did you?” Daugherty prompted the witness.
“I did not mention that in my testimony, no,” Beasley said.
“You didn’t mention it in your report, either,” Daugherty said.
“Correct,” said Beasley.
“So we’re clear,” Daugherty said, “your final conclusion is there’s no evidence of violence that would cause bloodshed in the home.”
“Correct,” Beasley said.
“You are aware that most of – all of – the photos you relied upon were taken February 19 [2010],” Daugherty said.
“I believe some were taken February 15 from Deputy Tingley, I believe,” Beasley said.
“That’s correct,” Duagherty said. “In any event, some were on the 15th and some were on the 19th.”
“Correct,” Beasley said.
“And the ones taken February 19, it’s fair to say there are more of them, right?” Daugherty asked.
“Yes,” Beasley said.
“And those were taken after the house had been straightened up, correct? said Daugherty.
“Correct,” Beasley said.
“Your conclusion assumes that the person who did this or person who did this along with someone else, or someone else didn’t have adequate opportunity to clean up, right?” Daugherty asked.
“No,” Beasley said. “I’m not assuming that. I’m just making the observation that it did not appear that there was blood evidence in the house, and it certainly potentially could have been cleaned up, yes.”
“How much time would be needed to clean up?” Daugherty asked.
“To be more specific, to clean up exactly what?” Beasley responded. “having three people, let’s say…”
“Well,” Daugherty said. “You tell me. There’s no evidence of bloodshed. Let’s assume…”
“In my opinion,” Beasley resumed. “If three people or four were bludgeoned to death inside the McStay home, there would be blood spatter everywhere within whatever room they were killed in. It would be really difficult – of course, nothing’s impossible – but really difficult to clean up all of the blood spatter, not just what is spattered on walls and furniture, but once spattered, the pooling of blood that’s also either on the floor or carpet. It would be a massive clean-up endeavor if that occurred as you asked me.”
Daugherty sought to suggest that the children might have been cleaned up in the bathtub of the upstairs bedroom, given that there were items of children’s clothing on the floor in the master bathroom.

Daugherty observed that there was a variance in the shade or darkness in some of what Beasley had opined were the spatter spots on the table, in what seemed to be an effort to suggest that some of the spots might be blood and others furniture stain spatter.
“Some are darker than others, which would also be consistent with more volume of liquid within the stain,” Beasley said. “Whatever the substance is, if it’s thicker, then it will be darker.”
“Is it your testimony, based on all you reviewed, that nothing happened in that house that night or early morning?” Daugherty asked.
“No,” Beasley said. “My testimony is there’s no evidence of a violent blunt force trauma event in the house that would have caused blood being spattered,” Beasley said.
“Assuming there wasn’t sufficient time to clean up,” Daugherty said.
“Yes,” Beasley said. “Is there a potential someone could have cleaned up all of that? The answer is ‘Yes, there’s a potential.’ It would be a major, major project is all I can say.”
“You can’t say nothing happened in the house, right?” Daugherty asked.
“Nothing happened as far as what, exactly?” Beasley came back.
“Well, anything,” said Daugherty. “Can you say with any degree of certainty that nothing happened in the house?”
“What is the definition of ‘nothing?’” asked Beasley. “Is it blunt force trauma?”
“Sure,” Daugherty said. “Blunt force trauma.”
“Okay,” Beasley said. “It could have happened in the house, but there is no evidence, in my opinion, to support that it did happen in the house, the murders, itself.”
Under redirect examination, Beasley was asked by McGee, “You were asked multiple times – you didn’t do this, you didn’t do that, correct?”
“Correct,” Beasley said.
“Are you on the investigative team for the sheriff’s department?” McGee asked.
“No,” responded Beasley.
“For San Diego [County] or San Bernardino [County]?” McGee asked.
“No,” Beasley said.
“They didn’t do a lot of stuff either, did they?” McGee asked.
“Correct,” Beasley said.
“Did the house appear to [have been] cleaned after four bodies were murdered as described by Dr. Changsri?” McGee asked.
Dr. Chanikarn Changsri is the pathologist with the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office who performed the autopsies on the McStay family corpses after they were recovered in 2013. She testified earlier in the trial.
“Objection, calls for speculation, assumes facts not in evidence,” said Supervising Deputy District Attorney Britt Imes.
“Overruled,” Judge Smith said.
“There was no evidence of that type of a clean-up that I observed,” Beasley said.
“And why do you say that?” McGee said
“Because the clean-up that would be needed, in my opinion, to remove that type of blood spatter and pooling of blood would have been more thorough, so that there would not have been the dirt and dust or whatever other debris I observed on the photographs taken at the McStay home.”
Also testifying this week was Gregg Stutchman, a forensic analyst specializing in the examination, enhancement and clarification of recorded audio and video evidence. At one time a police officer with the Calistoga Police Department who subsequently served as a captain with the Pacific Union College Police Department, Stutchman has cultivated an expertise in the evaluation of images and photographic evidence, including photometric analysis. He is the owner of Napa-based Stutchman Forensic Laboratory.
The primary reason the defense retained Stutchman was to contest one of the basic elements of the prosecution’s case, consisting of the postulation that Merritt was at the McStay residence the evening of February 4, 2010. The strongest evidence in support of that proposition is that at at 7:47 pm that evening, two video cameras that were part of the home security system Jennifer Mitchley had installed at her home located across the street and a door-and-a-half down from the McStay residence caught a fleeting and partial electronic glimpse of a vehicle which the prosecution maintains was that belonging to Charles Merritt at that time. In actuality, the prosecution’s experts stopped short of stating unequivocally that the image on the Mitchley video matches Merritt’s truck, stating rather that they could not rule out such a consistency. The first of those, Dr. Leonid Rudin, one of the world’s leading experts in the field of photogrametry, initially basing his analysis on the camera installed beneath the eave above the Mitchley home’s front porch, stated in the data he provided and his testimony during an evidentiary hearing outside the presence of the jury that he could not exclude Merritt’s 2000 Chevrolet truck which had been augmented with cargo boxes on its bed as a match for the vehicle captured on the Mitchley video. Prior to actually testifying before the jury, however, Rudin was provided by the defense with images taken from the video camera located on Mitchley’s side yard, which provided an angle on the back portion of the vehicle as it drove off that the porch video did not provide. At that point, Rudin, who had been paid nearly $20,000 for his work on behalf of the prosecution, indicated he would have to make a finding excluding the vehicle on the Mitchley video system as a match to Merritt’s truck. The prosecution then made a command decision and elected not to call Rudin as a witness.
Instead, prosecutors enlisted Eugenio Liscio, a professional forensic visualization specialist, three dimensional analyst, professor at the University of Toronto and the president of the International Association of Forensic and Security Metrology, to replace Rudin. Utilizing just the porch video to inform his report, Liscio generated findings and then testified to the effect that based on that evidence, he could not rule Merritt’s truck out as matching the vehicle depicted on the Mitchley video.
In doing so, Liscio stopped short of saying images of the vehicle seen in stills from the video positively matched three dimensional images San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Scientific Analysis Division Technician Michael Russ had captured of Merritt’s truck. Nevertheless, Liscio spoke with authority in saying that the vehicle had no characteristics which would have forced him to a finding that they were not photos of the same object. In reaching that conclusion, Liscio offered his opinion/interpretation that what appeared to be a light on the passenger side and toward the back of the vehicle seen on the Mitchley video, was not necessarily a light but rather could be the glare of ambient light in the neighborhood such as a streetlight or porch light reflecting off the handle\latch of the truck’s rear storage box/compartment. Merritt’s truck has no such feature. Liscio supported his assertion by noting that as the car begins moving forward the light dims and then disappears altogether for two frames of the video before reappearing and gradually brightening. This was a possible indication that convinced him, Liscio said, the bright spot was not an actual light but something mirroring light.
Under cross examination by McGee, Liscio stood by his conclusion that the cargo box handle/latch could be what was seen on the video and he defended his decision not to include data extracted from the side yard video as a legitimate one because there was nothing important in the side yard video that would aid in his analysis.
McGee was originally slated to question Stutchman. On Tuesday afternoon, however, McGee suddenly took sick and was absent from the courtroom. Stutchman’s direct examination was handled by defense co-counsel Raj Maline.
Stutchman testified that he had looked at the video the sheriff’s department had made of Merritt’s truck and then compared features of the truck captured in that video’s still frames with the features of the vehicle images he had isolated from the Mitchley video “to see what characteristics were in common and what were not.”
Stutchman said he had reviewed a video of Liscio’s testimony and analyzed Liscio’s report.
“What were some of the things you encountered with the Mitchley video in doing your job?” Maline asked.
“The video is very dark; you couldn’t see details of the side of the actual body,” Stutchman said. “There was a beam [roof beam above the Mitchley home porch] that was in the way and cut off anything that was above the hood level. You could see some headlights and some shadows when the brake lights were applied.”
“So it was grainy and poor quality?” Maline asked.
“Yes,” Stutchman said, adding that there was “very limited information available” from the Mitchley video.
In making his analysis, Stutchman was provided with a nighttime video prepared by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in 2014 that captured Merritt’s truck driving by with its lights on, providing a product that was clearer and had greater resolution than the Mitchley video.
Stutchman said the front of the vehicle shown in the sheriff’s department video could be distinguished in certain respects from the front of the vehicle seen in the video captured by the camera mounted above the porch of the Mitchley home.
Stutchman noted that the headlights of Merritt’s vehicle were reflected on the bumper and that in between the headlights and the bumper reflection what throughout the trial have been referred to variously as parking lights or running lights or driving lights were visible and clearly distinguishable from the headlights. He noted that the “driving lights are wider than the headlights and it goes around to the side.”
“In this video, we can clearly see the running lights clearly separated from the headlights,” said Maline. “Is that correct?”
“We can,” Stutchman said.
“The running lights are clearly visible and distinct from the headlights, is that correct?” Maline asked.
“True,” said Stutchman. “You see those headlights and above the reflection [of the headlights on the bumper] is the dark spot, but there is no lights present as you would see in the parking lights or turn signals in the video we just watched.”
The video Stutchman referenced was that one shot by Russ in 2014.
Stutchman continued, “In the truck owned by Mr. Merritt you can clearly see the very prominent driving lights, signal lights beneath the headlights and above the reflection. On the truck that drives through the video there is no corresponding light there. In fact there’s a dark spot between the bottom of the headlights and the top of the reflection.”
“But that Mitchley video has poor quality,” Maline said.
Stutchman acknowledged the Mitchley video was of poor quality but that objects on it could still be discerned.
“So even with this poor quality, we should still see that running light extending out and being a separate light piece,” Maline said.
“Yes,” Stutchman said.
“Would that be a factor for exclusion?” Maline asked.
“It would be,” Stutchman said.
“So based just on that, would you be able to exclude Mr. Merritt’s truck?” Maline asked.
“That would certainly be an exclusion factor,” Stutchman said.
Stutchman next turned his attention to a marker light at the back of and near the top of the truck’s rearmost cargo box. He said that because the Mitchley video’s visual field is blocked by the porch beam, that tail light would not show up on the video if it were Merritt’s truck.
Stutchman said he had made measurements of the height – that is, the distance from the ground – of the vehicle’s various lights.
“The measurements of how high the headlights are and this side light are, those are important factors?” Maline asked.
“Yes,” Stutchman responded.
“And did you note the measurements of this side light on Mr. Merritt’s vehicle?” Merritt asked.
In response, Stutchman rattled off the pertinent data.
According to measurements of Merritt’s truck made by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Scientific Analysis Division Technician Michael Russ on August 6, 2014, from the top of the headlight to the ground is 39 inches; from the middle of the headlight to the ground is 35 inches; from the bottom of the headlight to the ground is 32.5 inches. Furthermore, Stutchman said, the top of the side marker light at the extreme back of the utility bed is 61 inches from the ground and the bottom of the marker light to the ground is 60 inches.
Stutchman said he had extrapolated the dimensions of the vehicle on the Mitchley video using available tools and technology. “I used a Adobe Photoshop CS 5 Extended which has a measurement tool, very accurate measurement tools, to create a custom scale.” Stutchman said. “So that now gives us a custom scale to calculate other dimensions. So using that custom [tool], what I’ve done here is use photogametry to do measurement calculations of the clip from the Mitchley video.” He said the “bottom of the headlight is 32 inches; the top of the headlight from the ground is 39 inches.
Stutchman thus contrasted the “six-and-a-half inches” of depth for Merritt’s known headlight with the seven inch depth of the headlight in the Mitchley video.
Furthermore, according to Stutchman, the back of the vehicle depicted on the Mitchley video is substantially different from the back of Merritt’s truck.
Images of the vehicle in the Mitchley video and the sheriff’s department video stills of Merritt’s truck were displayed to show that the side marker light is substantially below the level of the 60-inch high side marker light at the top of the cargo box on Merritt’s truck.
“It can’t possibly be the marker light on Mr. Merritt’s vehicle,” Stutchman said.
The side marker light on the vehicle in the Mitchley video, which was characterized by Liscio as possibly being a reflection, is 39 inches from the ground “precluding it from being the marker light on the truck owned by Mr. Merritt,” Stutchman said.
Maline asked if the back light of Merritt’s truck being 60 inches above the ground as opposed to the 39 inch height of the illuminated spot toward the back of the vehicle on the Mitchley video was “an individual characteristic you can use for exclusion?”
“Yes,” Stutchman said.
Stutchman also testified that the height of the illuminated spot seen toward the back of the vehicle on the Mitchley video which Liscio characterized as a possible reflection, at a height of 39 inches above the ground, did not match the height of the cargo box latch/handle, being off by about an inch.
The following day, Wednesday, with McGee yet under the weather, Maline resumed the defense’s direct examination of Stutchman. During Wednesday’s testimony, Maline played on the court’s overhead monitors the side yard and porch videos, left to right respectively in coordination, side-by-side. The side yard video, shot from a slightly different height than the porch video and at a slightly more downward angle, captured even less of the top portion of the vehicle than its porch-based counterpart. Nevertheless, because the side yard camera was laterally angled slightly rightward with regard to its orientation toward the street while the porch camera was laterally angled slightly leftward with regard to its orientation in relation to the street, the side yard camera offered a fuller perspective on the back of the vehicle as it drove past the Mitchley residence, traveling left to right from the cameras’ perspectives. In this way, the vehicle’s taillight, which is at a height roughly on a line with the headlights – calculated at between 32 inches and 39 inches by Stutchman – is entirely inconsistent with the taillight height on Merritt’s truck documented by the sheriff’s department, which has stated the bottom of his truck’s taillights were at a height of 54.6 inches from the ground, 16.1 inches above the level of the top of the headlights.
In cross examining Stutchman, Supervising Deputy District Attorney Britt Imes sought to exploit the consideration that the illuminated spot on the passenger side of the vehicle, which Liscio had said could be a reflection of a streetlight or porch light, fades in intensity and disappears entirely for two frames before reappearing and gradually brightening. This, Imes suggested, was an indication it was not a light.
“You would agree that if that’s the sidelight on that model truck, it should stay illuminated throughout the entire video, correct?” Imes asked.
“To the extent that it’s visible to the camera throughout the entire video,” Stutchman said.
“Well, it starts being visible at this frame, correct?” Imes asked, running the frames one by one.
“Yes,” said Stutchman.
“Okay,” said Imes. “Are you aware of a speed bump in front of the Mitchley residence?”
“I am not,” responded Stutchman.
“A pothole?” Imes proposed
“No,” Stutchman said.
“Did it look like the vehicle drove up on the curb in any way?” Imes asked.
“No,” Stutchman said.
“So it did not change the perspective of the truck as it was driving down the roadway, correct?” Imes asked
“Not that I’m aware of,” Stutchman said.
“So it would be your assumption or reasonable conclusion that that light should remain constant since it’s now in view of the camera and progresses in front of that camera, correct?” Imes asked.
“Unless there’s something that obscures it,” Stutchman said.
“So as we progress to the next frame, where did it go?” asked Imes as the illuminated spot went dark.
“It looks like it went behind the beam,” Stutchman said.
“Oh, but there’s no speed bump there to raise the level of the truck, right?” Imes questioned.
“Correct, unless it’s the angle of the truck,” Stutchman said.
On Monday, the defense called California Highway Patrolman Jeffrey Addls, who testified that in February 2010 he was assigned to patrol the 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass area.
On February 6, 2010, Addls said he was dispatched to the scene of a fatal accident that had occurred at approximately 7:18 am during heavy rain after a spinout left a Nissan Ultima that had been traveling on the southbound 15 just north of State Route 138 on or against the median. When a tow truck arrived and pulled in front of the car, another vehicle broke traction with the roadway because of the rain, Addls said, and hit the Ultima, which then rear-ended the tow truck, resulting in two fatalities.
Addls said he responded to the scene to take over the investigation of the accident, arriving at around 9 am.
Traffic conditions were light when he arrived and it was “drizzling down the hill” around the time he had been dispatched, he said. The rain had stopped by later in the morning and the weather cleared up later in the day, Addls said.
February 6, 2010 is significant to the case, as on that day the prosecution alleges Merritt transferred the bodies of the McStay family into the desert where he buried them.
Also testifying Monday was Michael Leonard, a
corporate attorney from San Diego. Leonard testified that in July 2011 he represented an entity, whom he did not identify, in the purchase of Earth Inspired Products. Leonard said he drafted a contract relating to that purchase, and that Daniel Kavanaugh was the seller.
The defense alleges Kavanaugh is the actual killer of the McStay family, and that Kavanaugh profited as a consequence of killing Joseph McStay and commandeering the Earth Inspired Products venture and accounts relating to the business.
Leonard indicated that under the terms of the acquisition, Kavanaugh had conveyed to his client rights to use the Earth Inspired Products name and website and “probably” its email address. “I’m going off of memory, but probably, yes,” Leonard said.
“What was offered in return?” McGee asked.
“An amount in cash,” Leonard said. “I think it was $20,000. I believe there was a percentage of the business ongoing after the cash payment.”
“As a part of the agreement did the buyer also promise to assume any liabilities of the company as well?” McGee asked.
“They did,” Leonard said.
“And those liabilities were detailed out by the seller?” McGee asked.
“That sounds correct, yes.” Leonard said. “I’m not sure how the buyer would have known what the liabilities were.”
After McGee detailed him to a specific area of the contract, Leonard testified that liabilities Kavanaugh specified were two lawsuits filed against the company. The buyer in purchasing the company took on the status of the defendant in those suits.
McGee asked if the assumption of liabilities included monetary debt. “Liabilities did include monetary amounts that were owed to third parties,” Leonard said.
Before Leonard’s testimony ended, McGee again referred him to a specific portion of the contract, after which Leonard indicated that the contract entitled Kavanaugh to 20 percent of the company’s net profit, based on sales amounts less cost of overhead, taxes and insurance, for a period of 12 months.

With Former Third Ward City Councilman John Valdivia’s victory in the November 2018 San Bernardino Mayoral Election and his resignation from his council position so that he could be sworn in as mayor on December 19, a vacancy on the city council was create. To fill the post, and bring the six-sevenths strength council up to full status, the council consequently opted to fill the post through a special vote-by-mail election which concludes May 7. Three registered voters in the ward signed on to compete for the council position: Anthony Aguirre, Juan Figueroa and Treasure Ortiz. Ultimately, Aguirre decided against running, but not before the ballots for the election had been printed. Consequently, the names of all three are on the ballots that have been mailed to registered voters.
Treasure Ortiz this week spoke with the Sentinel about her candidacy.
“We need strong effective leadership,” Ortiz said. “We need someone on the dais who understands how government operates, how budgeting works, what the implications of decisions they are making are on the city and on the citizens they are making those decisions on behalf of.”
The major issues facing the city at present, Ortiz said, are “fiscal responsibility and the stability of the city council, mayor and the city manager in terms of maintaining infrastructure, our roads and water system, homelessness and providing services identifying areas so sheltering can take place, policing as far as community policing and the topheavyness in department brass as opposed to patrol officers, along with the animal shelter and the outsourcing of animal control services.”
With regard to the issues roiling in the Third Ward specifically, Ortiz said, “I have spent a lot of time speaking to the residents of Ward Three. One of the issues people in my ward have that those in the other wards do not is they have a real fear of the police. This is a highly Hispanic community and there are some people who want a large police presence and others who are very concerned about ICE [Immigration and Customes Enforcement] and the suspension of DACA [the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, which allows the children of immigrants to the Unitied States to avoid deportation], and they don’t want to get involved beyond making anonymous phone calls. We have a heavy and large language barrier. We have people who do not primarily speak English. We need to have translators so they can feel more comfortable in their own city.”
Ortiz said she would make a better council member than Figueroa or Aguirre because “I have actual knowledge and experience in municipal government, and an understanding of how government conducts itself and is run is so vital and necessary. You should never walk into a management position without understanding the principals of management and what the issues are. Someone who does that will always fail. I am familiar with the issues in the city, I have experience in government and I have an understanding of the work that needs to be done, the dynamics between the council the mayor and the city manager and how they are supposed to operate. That is invaluable.”
Ortiz said, “My campaign is what I call a promotion from within. It is about the community and the citizens of the city coming up and making decision on their own so everybody feels involved and that they have a voice. Residents have come to me with their thoughts and concerns. They have all been heard and if I am elected they are going to be addressed. I want the residents to know that when I am elected we will be seeking to put things and issues together as a city as a whole, ward to ward. I will be mindful of Ward 3, but so much of what needs to be done is for the elected leadership to lead the city as a whole, while they are dealing with the things internally in their individual wards.”
A graduate of Big Bear High School and Cal State San Bernardino from which she has a bachelor’s degree in public administration and a masters’ degree in general public administration with a focus on budgeting and overall management, Ortiz is now working toward a doctorate in public administration relating to public policy and media communications.
A former employee with the City of San Bernardino, she is currently working as a substitute public school teacher and owns her own social media firm.
-Mark Gutglueck

By Sheann Brandon
Doctors at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital recently conducted the institution’s first stem cell transplant in a sickle cell disease patient, effectively curing her of the inherited blood disease. The successful procedure offers hope and accessible treatment to those suffering from the disease in the Inland Empire and surrounding regions.
Children’s Hospital doctors had worked for nearly a year to build a program focused on helping hematology patients, specifically those with hemophilia and sickle cell disease.
Akshat Jain, MD, pediatric physician specializing in hematologic disorders at Children’s Hospital, said he is pleased with the outcome of the transplant and what it means for future patients suffering from sickle cell disease.
“We created a successful program so children and their families suffering from this disease don’t need to look elsewhere for treatment — it’s available to them right here in the Inland Empire,” Jain said.
The procedure was also Children’s Hospital’s first haploidentical transplant, meaning the stem cells donated — by the patient’s father — were only half a genomic match to the patient’s own stem cells. The transplant team infused the father’s cells directly into the patient after conditioning chemotherapy to replace the unhealthy blood-forming cells.
The patient, 11-year-old Valeria Vargas-Olmedo, had lived with sickle cell disease since birth. Her family began seeking treatment last year after she became incapacitated, unable to continue daily activities such as attend school, get in a car or even walk. Doctors said she had debilitating chronic pain, bone loss and bone necrosis.
“She is now disease free and can go back out into the world to do what an 11-year-old should be doing,” Jain said.
Clara Olmedo, Valeria’s mother, said, “Firstly, we want to thank God. We also want to thank Dr. Jain and his entire transplant team. Finally, thanks to Valeria’s father — he did everything he could in order to save her life and give her health through being a donor. My daughter is much more animated now — she’s begun walking, she’s eating and gaining weight, she’s happy. Little by little she is living a normal life like before.”
Sickle cell disease causes a shortage of red blood cells and thus an oxygen deficiency in one’s body. This can cause chronic pain and other serious complications, such as infection, acute chest syndrome and stroke. Without oxygen, any organ has a high likelihood of dying off.
Jain said the disease is generally found in populations like those in the Inland Empire, such as Hispanic and African American populations.
Jain said he and his team treat approximately 250 to 300 sickle cell patients in Children’s Hospital’s comprehensive sickle cell program — more patients than in some of the largest programs on the west coast.
The Vargas-Olmedo family wants to encourage other families who are struggling with sickle cell disease. “For the parents who see the news of this transplant and deal with this sickness, I hope they are encouraged and know that Children’s Hospital is a great hospital,” Clara Olmedo said. “There are many good doctors, professionals and excellent nurses. I encourage them to ask more questions about this procedure and our experience. They’ve helped us tremendously, and we have our trust in them.”

Sheann Brandon is a management resident at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital.

SAN BERNARDINO–Twenty-four members of the Westside Verdugo street gang and their associates were taken into custody this week upon being charged in eight federal indictments, one of which alleges they deliberately got themselves arrested in order to smuggle narcotics and syringes hidden in their body cavities into San Bernardino County jails.
The Westside Verdugos are one of the two most violent street gangs in San Bernardino, with its members being responsible for more than two dozen killings in the last decade.
The defendants arrested are among 35 charged in the indictments unsealed Thursday. A total of 10 defendants are already in state custody and are expected to be brought to federal court in the near future.
Three of the indictments returned by a federal grand jury earlier this month name Carlos Antonio Aznaran, 24, of Rialto, as the central figure in separate narcotics-trafficking conspiracies. One of the indictments details how the gang distributed methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana inside San Bernardino County’s jail system from at least July 2017 until April 2019. Another indictment alleges that members and associates of Westside Verdugo – including Aznaran and his wife, Elisa Montes, 28, of Palm Desert – conspired to distribute methamphetamine within the City of San Bernardino. The third narcotics indictment charges Aznaran and others with conspiring to distribute heroin in San Bernardino County, as well as possessing firearms and ammunition in furtherance of their drug crimes. The remaining five indictments charge individual Westside Verdugo gang members or associates with being felons in possession of firearms and ammunition. Those indicted are Aznaran, aka Twin; Gustavo Jimenez, aka Flaco; Cristopher Gutierrez, aka Lil’ C; Jaime Garcia, aka Sapo; Santino Greenough, aka Primo; Gilbert Rodriguez, aka Downer; Arturo Perez-Medina, aka Factor; Arian Castillo, Crafty; Frank Palmer aka Pancho; Sonja Flores, aka Red; Arthur Quiroz, aka Lil Sleepy and Nite Nite; Ernest Madrid, aka Osito; Trevor Harris, aka Vice and Eminem; Paul Barragan, aka Grimes; Jorge Pelayo, aka Lil Ryder and Lil’ Nite Nite; Edward Passillas, aka Gunner; Clifford Ray; Ernesto Guerra; Elisa Montes, Ernie Contreras, aka Ern Dog; Jesse Duggins, aka Bullet; Joseph Garcia, aka Low-Key; Vickie Quijada, aka Vee; Jessica Romo, aka Batman; Raul Cervantes, aka Wiggles and Wigs; Henry Nunez, aka Grumps; Raymond Jeffers, aka Ray; Victor Perez, aka Vic and Sykes; Mario Garcia, aka Droopy; Angelina Jeffers, aka Candy; and Jose Manuel Galaviz, aka Jokes.
One of the indictments alleges that on July 2, 2017, Aznaran and other defendants planned for another gang member – Trevor Harris, a.k.a. “Eminem,” and “Vice,” 28, of San Bernardino – to get himself arrested purposely so he could smuggle narcotics to jailed co-conspirators. One week later, Harris was arrested for tampering with a vehicle and was taken to the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino. A search by law enforcement personnel, who had been monitoring telephone calls at the jail, recovered from Harris’s anal cavity approximately 43.33 grams of methamphetamine, approximately 49.7 grams of heroin, five syringes, and 20 packets of the opioid Suboxone, the indictment states. The narcotics allegedly were separated into multiple packets with monikers written on them to indicate who would receive the drugs.
On September 24, 2017, Ernest Madrid, 48, of San Bernardino, told another person that he was “trying to get busted right now” so he could smuggle narcotics into a custody facility, according to the indictment. Later that day, Madrid was arrested for a probation violation and was taken to the Central Detention Center, where approximately 78.2 grams of methamphetamine, approximately 12.12 grams of heroin, and five syringes – all concealed in his anal cavity – were seized. Authorities also found two telephone numbers, allegedly used by Aznaran, written in marker on Madrid’s legs.
“For more than 50 years, this gang has been responsible for spreading drugs and violence in this community, but today we have taken a major step to combat the group’s influence on the city of San Bernardino,” said United States Attorney Nick Hanna. “While this is not the first time federal authorities have joined with our local counterparts to fight this criminal gang, today’s arrests signal that we will continue to pursue street gangs until families in every Southern California neighborhood can lead safe and peaceful lives.”
“Collaboration with law enforcement at all levels of government is crucial in our continuing efforts to stem the tide of criminal activity by street gangs,” said Paul Delacourt, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The arrests announced today are the latest example of that partnership and of our commitment to targeting the most violent of these gangs, such as the Westside Verdugo, whose members traffic in drugs and intimidate through violence.”
“Today, our department assigned four tactical teams to apprehend the suspects involved in this case. This is a significant step in interrupting this criminal enterprise so that they can be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney,” said Undersheriff Shannon Dicus of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. “On behalf of Sheriff John McMahon, we would like to thank all of our agency partners, especially the men and women who worked on this investigation for their commitment to protecting all of us.”
“This gang is and has been responsible for many crimes on our streets,” said San Bernardino Acting Police Chief Eric McBride. “We appreciate the work and collaborative effort done by our partnering agencies. This investigation has made strides in making our community a safer place.”
In addition to allegations of distribution of methamphetamine, one of the indictments also claims that two of the gang’s associates were found in possession of personal identifying information of dozens of unsuspecting victims, whose identities the defendants used to commit fraud.
In the third conspiracy case, the documents allege that law enforcement not only seized heroin, but also substances containing fentanyl, as well as loaded firearms stored with the narcotics.
The charge of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances carries a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, and the San Bernardino Police Department.
The Fontana Police Department; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; IRS Criminal Investigation; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, and the San Bernardino County Probation and Parole Departments provided substantial assistance.
This matter is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Justin R. Rhoades and Scott M. Lara of the Violent and Organized Crime Section.

All aboard and ready for the best show on earth. Summer in California! Come one, come all on the fantastic Board Short Voyage. That’s right, board shorts are back and it doesn’t get any better than that. With fun prints like stripes, floral and more the selections are endless. The retro old school board short is very present today and looks great on the beach or a pool setting. Board shorts are great for all body types whether you’re tall, stacked, or short there’s one made for you. For females you can opt for a curve flattering short and men go with a good color to match your skin. Summer’s coming and California is the place to be. Make sure you are boarding right. Enjoy!

“Life’s better in board shorts.” -Bllabong

By clicking on the blue portal below, you can download a PDF of the April 19 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel.

Sentinel 04-19-19

By Mark Gutglueck
In what was perhaps the most dynamic round of testimony so far in the Charles Merritt murder trial, an expert witness brought in by the defense severely undercut a crucial element of the prosecution’s case, casting considerable doubt upon, if not outright obliterating, what has been offered by the district attorney’s office as the motive in the brutal McStay family killings.
Moreover, testimony by that witness, computer forensic analyst Bryan LaRock, taken in conjunction with testimony by PayPal custodian of records Sarah Kane, definitively established that the individual the defense team alleges is the actual murderer had obtained fraudulent access to one of the victim’s business accounts and the funds therein after the homicides occurred.
In addition to solidifying the defense’s assertion that this alternate perpetrator, Dan Kavanaugh, had motive for killing the family, LaRock offered a compelling indication that Kavanaugh was actually in the San Diego area when the murders occurred. That controverts the alibi that Kavanaugh had previously asserted and which law enforcement officials heretofore have accepted, consisting of his claim that he was in Hawaii when the McStay family was killed.
According to the prosecution’s version of events, Charles “Chase” Merritt, driven by financial desperation that grew out of his unbridled gambling addiction and utter lack of fiscal discipline, engaged in a series of thefts from Earth Inspired Products, the company owned and operated by his business associate, Joseph McStay. Through that company, Joseph was selling high end decorative water features – artificial waterfalls and fountains – which he and Merritt designed and which Merritt manufactured out of steel, glass, rock and other components based upon the specifications outlined by the company’s customers and passed along to Merritt by McStay. The prosecution’s theory, presented during the initial nine weeks of the trial that began on January 7 of this year, is that Merritt fraudulently obtained access to the QuickBooks accounting system McStay had set up for the Earth Inspired Products enterprise and on February 1 and February 2, 2010 wrote himself $7,495 worth of checks.
When he learned of what Merritt was up to, either shortly before or perhaps even on February 4, 2010, Joseph McStay traveled to Rancho Cucamonga, where Merritt was then living, and confronted him about his larceny, threatening to alert authorities, prosecutors allege. After Joseph McStay returned home to north San Diego County, the prosecution’s theory continues, Merritt that evening drove to the McStay residence in Fallbrook where he killed Joseph McStay, his wife Summer and their two sons, four-year-old Gianni and three-year-old Joseph, Jr.
Merritt then secreted the bodies for two days, in the meantime again fraudulently accessing Joseph McStay’s QuickBooks account for Earth Inspired Products, the prosecution maintains, and on February 4, 2010, February 5, 2010 and again on February 8, 2010 issued himself checks made out to himself for a total of $23,855.
Merritt then transported the corpses up into San Bernardino County’s High Desert, an area with which Merritt was familiar from having grown up in Hesperia where he attended Apple Valley High School for three years in the 1970s, according to prosecutors. There, in a remote area between Victorville and Oro Grande on February 6, 2010 he buried all four of his victims along with the three-pound sledge hammer he had used to bludgeon them in shallow graves he dug in a wash off a rarely-traveled dirt road, according to the prosecution. To confuse the situation, throw authorities off his track and delay a serious investigation into the matter, the prosecution maintains, Merritt then drove the McStay family’s 1996 Isuzu Trooper, which yet contained the child seats for Gianni and Joseph, to San Ysidro, where he left the vehicle in a shopping center parking lot roughly a quarter of a mile from the Mexican border.
The case against Merritt is a largely circumstantial one. What physical evidence does exist in the case is not in and of itself implicative but must be tied into and intricately connected with other equally slender evidence and assembled into a conclusion contexted within a set of assumptions. As with all murders and crimes in general, the three factors that investigators must satisfy in order to establish the viability of an individual as a confirmed suspect consist of assigning to him motive, means and opportunity. If investigators determine that someone had a realistic reason to engage in the crime – motive – together with the tools, effects and ability to carry it out – means – and if they cannot rule out that the suspect was present at the scene of the crime when it occurred and thus had the opportunity to commit the crime, they will then collect and catalog all evidence supporting those determinations. The investigative case file is then turned over to prosecutors, who upon their discretion and based upon further determinations can potentially elevate the suspect to the status of a defendant by lodging charges against him and utilizing the facts in the investigative file to inform the narrative of guilt presented against him in court.
In the case of People vs. Merritt, many of the facts are vulnerable to divergent, varying or even contradictory interpretation, and the prosecution since the onset of the trial has labored to illustrate that its interpretation of those facts and the cascade of events surrounding the murders and their aftermath are more reasonable and therefore compelling and convincing than the competing constructions and alternative theories of the defense.
With regard to the motive, the prosecution maintains that it was Joseph McStay’s confrontation of Charles Merritt on February 4, 2010 about checks Merritt had surreptitiously written against the Earth Inspired Products business account accompanied by McStay’s stated intention to contact law enforcement authorities over the matter that threw the defendant into a panic, prompting him to murder his business associate to keep his larceny under wraps. The circumstances of Joseph McStay’s murder which included the presence or proximity of his family or at least their knowledge of Merritt being with Joseph at the time, the prosecution has implied, were such that Merritt had no other choice but to dispose of them as well.
That element of the prosecution’s theory, however, hinges upon Merritt having actually forged the checks in question. In seeking to establish Merritt did just that, the prosecution has relied upon peculiarities in the way the February 1 and February 2 checks were drafted. Of note is that Joseph McStay for several years had two QuickBooks accounts for the Earth Inspired Products enterprise, each of which was tied to separate email accounts. The most frequently used of these accounts prior to and up until early 2010 was that associated with the email address contact@earthinspiredproducts.com. In drafting checks pertaining to his business, Joseph McStay’s demonstrated pattern with only a single exception going back to 2007 was that when he generated checks on a computer printer for the account associated with contact@earthinspiredproducts.com he would capitalize the first letter of the first and last names of the payee, capitalize the first letter of each word in the memo line and capitalize the first letter of the payment amount. For virtually all of Earth Inspired Products’ operations from 2007 until 2010, according to the prosecution and sheriff’s department investigators, the contact@earthinspiredproducts.com account was used to keep track of the income flowing into the company and the payments going out, consisting primarily of payments to vendors and suppliers as well as payments to Merritt for his participation in the operation, which consisted of designing, fabricating, shipping and installing the water features. The list of entities either making payments to or receiving payments from the contact@earthinspiredproducts.com numbered in the scores.
After years in which the QuickBooks account associated with contact@earthinspiredproducts.com was used to handle accounting and check drafting for the company’s income and expenditures, on February 1, 2010, just three days before the family’s disappearance, Joseph McStay’s other QuickBooks account, the one associated with the email address custom@earthinspiredproducts.com which had long lain dormant, abruptly transitioned into the platform from which the financial activity relating to the company was handled. That account had far fewer entities listed in its customer and vendor list. The sudden onset of activity included the issuance of two checks made out to Charles Merritt created on February 1, 2010 bearing February 1 dates, each for $2,500; another check to Charles Merritt created February 2 and bearing the date of February 2, 2010 for $2,495, another check made out to Charles Merritt created February 4, 2010, bearing the date of February 4, for $4,000; another check to Charles Merritt created on February 5, 2010, backdated to February 4, for $4,500; a check to Metro Sheet Metal created on February 5, 2010 and backdated to February 4 for $1,650; another check to Metro Sheet Metal created on February 5 and backdated to February 4, for $250; another check to Charles Merritt created on February 5 and backdated to February 4, 2010, for $6,505; a check to Charles Merritt created on February 5, 2010 and backdated to February 4 and bearing a different check number than was indicated in the QuickBooks history, for $2,350; and another check made out to Charles Merritt created on February 8 and backdated to February 4 for $6,500.
Metro Sheet Metal is an Azusa-based metal fabricating concern which included a foundry out of which Charles Merritt operated in manufacturing the waterfalls and fountains for Earth Inspired Products.
Those ten checks created on February 1, February 2, February 4, February 5 and February 8, the prosecution alleges, were not created by Joseph McStay but rather were forgeries by Merritt. Supporting that contention, according to the district attorney’s office, is that the checks were all created using the QuickBooks account tied to the email address custom@earthinspiredproducts.com rather than the account associated with the email address contact@earthinspiredproducts.com, as was previously Joseph McStay’s consistent practice. Even more damning evidence that the checks are forgeries done at Merritt’s hand consists, the prosecution maintains, of the consideration that the checks themselves do not utilize the capitalization scheme Joseph McStay previously incorporated with virtually all of the checks generated on the Earth Inspired Products account.
On each of the February 1, February 2, February 4, February 5 and February 8 checks the first letter of the names of the payees are not uppercased. Thus, the checks to Merritt are made out to “charles merritt.” The checks to Metro Sheet Metal are made out to “metro sheet metal.” This is a telltale indication that Joseph McStay did not issue the checks, the prosecution maintains, and a giveaway that Merritt, whom the prosecution has sought to portray as unfamiliar with the use of QuickBooks and the process for issuing and printing checks using that system, botched the format for the checks he was writing to himself during his embezzling caper.
It is a central tenet of the case against Merritt that McStay became aware of the thefts from his business account and confronted Merritt about it at an early afternoon meeting they had at a Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant after Joseph left his Fallbrook home late in the morning of February 4, 2010 to drive to Rancho Cucamonga, where Merritt lived at the time. It is the prosecution’s contention that at that meeting Joseph McStay threatened to report the thefts to authorities, and that because Merritt had previous convictions for nonviolent offenses that were nevertheless felonies, his arrest, prosecution and conviction on charges relating to the fraud would subject him to a substantial prison term and California’s Three Strikes Law. This prospect threw Merritt into a panic, and to avoid that eventuality, the prosecution avers, he resolved to silence Joseph McStay, and he sojourned to Fallbrook that evening, where he carried out the heinous deed, along with the collateral killings of the rest of the family.
Bryan LaRock, whose pedigree as a forensic computer analyst includes both a bachelor of science and master’s degree in computer science from USC and full credentials as a certified computer examiner granted him by the International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners, was recruited to work on Merritt’s legal defense in 2015, predating the hiring of the legal team representing Merritt during the trial, which consists of James McGee, Raj Maline and Jacob Guerard.
LaRock’s testimony, coming as it did at an advanced stage of the trial, in the 14th week of testimony, the fifth week into the defense’s presentation of its side of the case after nine weeks of the prosecution’s exposition of its evidence and witnesses and on the 40th, 41st and 42nd day of the trial, had the effect of recontexting significant elements of the proceedings.
LaRock said while he had not been entrusted with the actual items, he had been provided with the “forensic images” extracted from something close to 30 electronic devices that were seized by law enforcement personnel in the course of their investigation into what was initially considered to be the disappearance of the McStay family and which subsequently was learned to have been their murders. He said those devices included “eight or nine” computers, as well as hard drives, thumb drives, mobile phones and other items. LaRock said it was his intent to look at the electronic data contained within those devices and their history to extract as many pieces of evidence relating to the disappearance as he could find and thereby “basically add some context as to what happened.”
He said that of those devices and items “some stood out in terms of relevance” in relation to the effort “to figure out what had happened at the time of the disappearance.” LaRock indicated directly, and his testimony bore out, that the device containing the most illustrative information was an Emachine desktop computer that was one of the home computers in the McStay household.
LaRock was also provided with access to other information deemed relevant to his investigation, including phone records, which he considered in conjunction with the activity on the digital devices he was able to trace. LaRock said that where it was appropriate he had cross-referenced information gleaned from the different electronic devices, in some cases comparing activity on two of the devices at the same time. In this way, LaRock said, he had unearthed indications that ran counter to the prosecution’s theory of the case.
One example of this, he testified, is the information extracted from Joseph McStay’s cell phone records for the late afternoon of February 4, 2010 and his simultaneous activity on the Emachine.
LaRock said his analysis of data on the Emachine demonstrated that on the afternoon and into the evening of February 4 Joseph McStay had been utilizing a three-dimensional drawing program on his computer known as Google Sketchup which had been accessed using the web browser from 4:10 pm. to around 5 pm.
February 4 is the day the prosecution maintains Merritt murdered the McStay family. According to LaRock, however, the electronic data indicates that McStay and Merritt were in a cooperative mode relating to their shared water feature manufacturing venture after McStay departed Rancho Cucamonga following the lunch meeting at the Chick-fil-A at which the prosecution claims Joseph was threatening to report Merritt’s alleged check forging activity to agents of the law.
“In the afternoon of February 4th [2010] there are several calls showed as being made to Chase Merritt’s phone number,” LaRock said in reference to Joseph McStay’s cell phone records.
Those calls occurred at 3:03 p.m. while Joseph McStay’s phone was in contact with a cell phone tower in Ontario and another call was placed to Merritt at 3:32 p.m. when McStay’s phone was in contact with a cell tower in Norco, LaRock pointed out. At 4:18 p.m. another call was made to Merritt with McStay’s cell phone pinging off of a cell tower in Fallbrook, an indication that Joseph McStay was back at his residence at that time. That call occurred some eight minutes after the data from the Emachine shows Joseph McStay had initiated his Google Sketchup activity, according to LaRock.
“This 4:18 p.m. call was made to Chase Merritt while the Google Sketchup activity is occurring,” LaRock testified.
“And why was that significant?” Maline asked.
“That’s of significance to me because… it looks like the user is traveling toward the Fallbrook house…” LaRock began.
”Objection, calls for speculation, lacks foundation,” Supervisng Deputy District Attorney Britt Imes interrupted him.
“Overruled,” Judge Michael A. Smith said.
“Simply taking the location information listed here,” LaRock went on, “over the different times we see Ontario, followed by Norco, followed by Fallbrook, and then working on design information, so the Sketchup design program looking at house information, design information, so it has the appearance to me of Joseph working on a drawing…’
“Objection, that calls for speculation,” said Imes, preventing LaRock from following through with his observation that it appeared that at that point McStay and Merritt were involved in a cooperative exchange relating to the designing of a water feature. Given the context, LaRock’s suggestion was that the activity seemed to contradict the assertion that McStay was on the verge of reporting Merritt to law enforcement authorities.
Judge Smith sustained the objection and instructed LaRock’s answer to be stricken from the record.
Maline, however, was able to get before the jurors LaRock’s testimony regarding the cooperative nature of the relationship between McStay and Merritt which followed as a consequence of the designing of the water features.
LaRock said that his forensic analysis of the Emachine showed that for approaching 40 minutes from 8:43 p.m. until 9:21 p.m. on January 31, 2004, Joseph McStay was engaged in using the Sketchup design program on a drafting project, the file name for which referenced both Merritt and a customer designated as “fred,” in lower case, presumably a water feature Merritt was working on, and that in the middle of that session at 8:59 p.m., Joseph called Merritt on his cell phone, and then sent him a text message with a photo, nearly an hour later, at 9:56 p.m.
The circumstances surrounding McStay’s design session on February 4 during which he was in telephonic contact with Merritt was in virtually all respects similar to the design session he was involved in on January 31 when he called Merritt.
According to LaRock, there was another phone contact between McStay and Merritt at 5:47 p.m. in the early evening of February 4. LaRock also referenced a last phone call placed from McStay to Merritt at 8:28 p.m. that evening, which Merritt did not answer.
Previous testimony in the trial established that the 8:28 p.m. call was the last call ever made from Joseph McStay’s cell phone. Prosecutors allege the murders occurred at some point that evening following that phone call.
With regard to that evening, Maline asked LaRock, “Was there internet activity after 5 o’clock that you documented and in your opinion was significant?”
“Yes,” said LaRock.
‘”And what was that?” Maline asked.
“There was additional internet activity around the hour of 8 p.m,” said LaRock.
“What specific internet activity are you talking about that was significant in your opinion?” Maline asked.
“A user on the computer logged onto QuickBooks online, and activity there,” responded LaRock.
LaRock said there was data contained on the Emachine’s temporary internet files to show that someone had logged into the QuickBooks online site at 7:56 p.m. At the same time, Maline displayed on the courtroom’s overhead visual monitors the computer read-out of the activity being referenced.
“What is it we’re looking at here?” Maline asked.
“This appears to be a debit-input screen for entering information for a check.” said LaRock. “This is part of QuickBooks online.”
Thereafter another exhibit was displayed for the jury, a read-out from the Emachine’s activity registry. “This is another web page entitled ‘print checks,’” said LaRock. “The file name is ‘select print1.htm.’”
“Is there a time that is associated with this file?” Maline asked.
“7:59 p.m.,” said LaRock.
The next internet registry item on the Emachine, LaRock testified, over an objection by Imes, related to actuating the printing of the check.
“This is entitled ‘print checks set up,’” said LaRock. “It is a web page entitled ‘print checks,’ and it shows a payment listed, type of check, to Charles Merritt.”
By his testimony, LaRock refuted the prosecution contention that the February 4 check to Charles Merritt for $4,000 had been a forgery.
LaRock pointed out that there was an accompanying screen to the one relating to the one pertaining to the drafting of the check that showed the amount of money in the Earth Inspired Products bank account upon which the check was drawn.
“It reads current balance a little more than $89,000…[$89,724] nearly $90,000,” said LaRock.
Unlike the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s computer analyst, Detective Jason Schoeder, who said he could not access the print spool files that were triggered with the effort to print the check written near 8 p.m. on February 4, 2010 because they were garbled, LaRock said he succeeded in opening the file.
“I was able to open these spool files to see what the contents were,” said LaRock. Both were generic alignment pages for QuickBooks online to set up the printer, he said.
LaRock told the jury he was able to draw a broader parallel between McStay’s cell phone usage and his QuickBook and check drafting activity, a significant element of which controverted the prosecution’s narrative of guilt implicating Merritt. Joseph McStay made a consistent practice of phoning Merritt shortly after writing him a check, what LaRoock said was “a pattern that I noticed. There is absolutely a correlation between checks that are issued in the QuickBooks online records followed by calls from Joseph to Chase Merritt. I did compare the QuickBooks online records and the checks that were issued that were listed to Charles Merritt or Metro Sheet Metal. I compared that with the phone records of Joseph McStay because I wanted to see if what I noticed in terms of a call being made to Chase after a check was issued was consistent. What I found was, for the period of time for which I have the phone records, that a phone call was made to Chase every single time that a check was issued for the QuickBooks online records.”
This was true with regard to the checks issued to Merritt on February 1, February 2 and February 4, 2010, LaRock testified.
LaRock’s testimony in this regard ran counter to the prosecution’s assertion that the checks written to Merritt on those days were forgeries by Merritt and that the checks were not written by McStay.
LaRock’s forensic analysis of the Emachine turned up other evidence which cast further doubt on the prosecution’s allegation that Merritt forged the February 1, February 2 and February 4 checks, he said.
Maline displayed the activity log for the QuickBooks account associated with the email address custom@earthinspiredproducts.com, which showed that someone operating from McStay’s Emachine computer had added Charles Merritt as a vendor on February 1, 2010 at 12:24 p.m. Maline drew attention to the capitalization, or lack thereof, in that entry, as it was spelled “charles merritt.’
“You had indicated a vendor had been added, Charles Merritt, all lower case, correct?” Maline asked.
“At 12:24 p.m., correct,” LaRock said.
“What’s the next thing in progression that occurs?” Maline inquired.
“We see two additional sign-ins followed by two checks,” LaRock said.
“And those are at 12:34 and at 12:37,” Maline said.
“That’s right,” LaRock said. “I’d like to point out that at 12:34 p.m. user Joseph McStay added check to Charles Merritt, all in lower case, and at 12:37 p.m. user Joseph McStay added check to Charles Merritt, all in lower case.”
The incontrovertible computer-stamped date of those entries and the consideration that the checks were drafted on the McStay family’s household computer three days before the family’s disappearance would appear to indicate that it was indeed Joseph who drafted those checks, ruling out a central premise of the prosecution’s case against the defendant, that being the assertion that Merritt had forged the two February 1 checks and the February 2 check. If no such forgery occurred, the prosecution’s further contention that McStay had confronted him about those forgeries on the afternoon of February 4, precipitating Merritt’s sledgehammer-wielding, homicidal frenzy, collapses.
Further data LaRock was able to mine from the computer files subjected yet another prong of the prosecution’s case to question.
LaRock said there were “very detailed” records pertaining to Merritt’s work on features for Earth Inspired Products contained in an electronic folder within the Emachine. LaRock said that there was consistency between the QuickBooks entries that Joseph McStay made relating to the transactions Earth Inspired Products was engaged in with its customers and vendors and a separate ledger he kept in which those transactions were listed.
At least by inference, those books bring into question the prosecution’s suggestion that killing Joseph McStay was in any fashion in Merritt’s financial interest. Those books show that Joseph’s company, Earth Inspired Products, was more than just a meal ticket for Merritt, and that it represented a significant source of income, indeed one that if not offering him wealth, then significant comfort.
Earth Inspired Products was doing well, particularly before the full effects of the economic downturn that manifested during the first decade of the Third Millennium. According to information previously introduced during the trial, Merritt and Joseph divided the gross revenue between them along a roughly 60 percent to 65 percent/40 percent to 35 percent split, with the lion’s share going to Merritt, though with the proviso that the materials and equipment needed to manufacture the water features were paid for from Merritt’s share of the proceeds.
According to a spreadsheet that Joseph had created and which LaRock recovered, Earth Inspired Products in 2007 had a total income of $330,375.97, of which $204,666.98 was paid to Merritt.
In 2008, according to a spreadsheet that Joseph created and which LaRock recovered, Earth Inspired Products had a total income of $342,099, of which $224,615 was paid to Merritt.
The spreadsheet that Joseph prepared for 2009 that LaRock recovered from the computer was incomplete, running only as far as the end of January of that year. However, LaRock was able to find a spreadsheet that cataloged the company’s 2009 activity that Joseph McStay had uploaded to Google Documents. It showed total income of $297,954, with $158,210 going to Merritt.
LaRock offered testimony about an issue of considerable mystery and not-yet fully determined significance in the case, which had been brought up previously during the testimony of Detective Jason Schroeder, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s forensic computer analyst.
LaRock said that in the early morning hours of February 8, someone had attempted to access the Emachine and another of the McStay family’s household computers, a Hewlett-Packard that was used primarily by Summer McStay.
According to LaRock, in between 2:05 a.m. and 2:07 a.m., Google searches were run on the Emachine which involved bringing up sites or activity that had previously been undertaken or visited on the computer, one of which included QuickBooks online.
“The user ran six of the searches.” LaRock said. “My opinion is that the user opened Internet Explorer and used most likely this drop down [menu] to click on the searches. Each of these six searches had been run in the past.” Neither QuickBooks online nor any of the other sites was fully accessed from the computer at that time, according to LaRock, although he indicated the computer’s history registry might have been looked over. At 2:09 the Hewlett-Packard was turned on and a search initiated, LaRock said.
Because the Hewlett-Packard computer had been factory reset on January 23, 2010, whoever was seeking to determine what internet activity had taken place on that computer probably did not glean much information, LaRock said, since the Google tool bar on it had been emptied.
Whoever intruded into the McStay home that hour of the morning most likely remained there for nearly two hours, LaRock said, as the user “affirmatively shut down” the Emachine at 3:55 a.m.
LaRock said that based upon his analysis of activity on computer programs, including entries into spreadsheets, it appeared that Joseph McStay was using a laptop which had been provided with the name “Josepe,” which was never recovered. Much of the accounting and design work that Joseph McStay did with regard to Earth Inspired Products was carried out on the Josepe laptop, according to LaRock.
The majority of the testimony LaRock offered under direct examination was oriented toward Maline’s efforts to undermine primary elements of the prosecution’s case pertaining to his client’s activities and alleged direct involvement in the murders. Maline did, however, guide LaRock along one tangent that bore no direct relationship to Merritt but rather propounded the defense’s alternative perpetrator theory involving Dan Kavanaugh.
According to Maline as well as the other two members of Merritt’s defense team, James McGee and Jacob Guerard, the individual best fitting the profile of the murderer of the McStay family is Dan Kavanaugh, and the investigators in the case wrongfully focused on their client early on and then failed to make a thorough investigation of other potential perpetrators, Kavanaugh foremost among them.
Kavanaugh, who has a level of computer literacy and facility with the internet such that he is known to many as “Dan the Hacker,” was assisting Joseph McStay in his promotion of his water feature business, essentially by assisting in marketing the water fountains and artificial waterfalls by means of the internet, which included ploys to move Earth Inspired Product’s website to the top of search engine listings. Kavanaugh’s efforts on Joseph’s behalf dated back to before Joseph’s arrangement with Merritt for the designing and completion of customized features. In large measure, before Merritt arrived on the scene, Joseph was essentially dealing in obtaining ready-made water fountains and water features available from wholesalers which he then packaged and delivered to interested customers. For the service Kavanaugh was providing, Joseph had agreed to provide Kavanaugh with a percentage of sales made over the internet.
With the initiation of the customized products line constructed by Merritt, McStay had continued to deal in prefabricated water features, paying Kavanaugh in accordance with whatever sales he made via the internet of those products. But he had not shared with Kavanaugh any of the revenue stream from the water features Merritt was delivering. When Kavanaugh learned of this in the spring of 2009, he grew resentful, and confronted Joseph over having been deprived of the percentage of the ongoing profits for Earth Inspired Products to which he felt he was entitled. There was some degree of back-and-forth between McStay and Kavanaugh over this, which included threats by Kavanaugh that he would ruin the business, and route internet traffic coming into the Earth Inspired Products website to porn sites, unless Joseph agreed to cut him in on the customized product end of the company’s activity. McStay at some point in mid-2009 agreed to buy whatever interest Kavanaugh claimed to have in Earth Inspired Products out, which was done by McStay signing over to Kavanaugh title to a BMW and making a series of payments to him, the last of which was due to be made at the time the family disappeared.
Subsequent to the family’s disappearance, Kavanaugh approached Joseph McStay’s mother, Susan Blake, and Merritt, and the three became involved in an effort, which also included Joseph McStay’s half-brother Mike McStay, in keeping Earth Inspired Products afloat until Joseph McStay made what was hoped would be Joseph’s eventual return. Ultimately, Kavanaugh took well over $100,000 out of the business for himself and then horned in on the ownership of the company, ultimately selling it in June 2011.
McGee, Maline and Guerard contend that Kavanaugh had motives for killing Joseph McStay in the form of revenge and greed, which Merritt did not possess. The two law enforcement agencies that dealt with Kavanaugh on issues relating to the McStay family – the San Diego Sheriff’s Department which was looking at the matter as a multiple missing persons case in 2010 and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department which focused on it as a murder investigation after the family’s bodies were found in 2013 – satisfied themselves that Kavanaugh was not involved based upon his claim to have been in Hawaii at the time of the family’s disappearance.
In 2009 and 2010, Joseph McStay and Dan Kavanaugh had PayPal accounts, which they used for both receiving and making payments via the internet. LaRock was provided with the records of their transactions using the PayPal system, which contained data relating to each individual transaction, the amount, the entity being paid or paying, the amount of the transaction, the date and the internet protocol address, also known as an IP, from which the transactions are made. An IP address provides the location of the device using it to access the internet.
With Kavanaugh’s PayPal records for 2010 being displayed on the courtroom’s overhead display monitors, Maline asked LaRock about the IP address – 66.91.7.2 – of the computer Kavanaugh was using on January 14, 2010, when he made three contacts with PayPal.
“Is that IP address associated with a region?” Maliine asked.
“Yes,” said LaRock.
“And what is that?” Maline asked.
“That IP address is associated with Hawaii,” responded LaRock.
“What about the next entry?” asked Maline. “It looks like there is a 12-day gap.”
“That’s right,” La Rock said. “January 26 is the next entry.”
“The time is 4:47,” said Maline.
“4:47 a.m.,” said LaRock.
“And now we have a new address, 70.95.69.75,” Maline said. “What area is that IP address associated with?”
“The San Diego area,” LaRock said.
The document showed Kavanaugh having contact with PayPal using the 70.95.69.75 IP address nine times in total on January 26; once on January 27, 2010 using the 70.95.69.75 IP address; having contact with PayPal once on February 5, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 IP address; once on February 6, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 IP address; having contact with PayPal once on February 8, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; having contact with PayPal once on February 10, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; having contact with PayPal three times on February 11, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; having contact with PayPal once on February 12, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; having contact with PayPal three times on February 13, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; having contact with PayPal twice on February 14, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; having contact with PayPal three times on February 15, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; having contact with PayPal four times on February 16, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address; and having contact with PayPal once on February 17, 2010 from the 70.95.69.75 address, after which point his contact with PayPal is made from a completely different IP address, 208.54.4.52, a T-Mobile address associated with Southern California in general.
Throughout the period from January 26 until April 17, when he begins using an IP address associated with an area in Washington State, Kavanaugh’s interaction with PayPal takes place from IP addresses in California.
Thus, in his testimony under direct examination by Maline, LaRock appeared to controvert the alibi Kavanaugh asserted, and which the law enforcement agencies dealing with the McStay family matter seemed to have accepted, which was that Dan Kavanaugh was not in Southern California or the San Diego area at the time of the murders.
In cross examining LaRock, Supervising Deputy District Attorney Britt Imes attempted to erase the impression that LaRock had provided relating to Kavanaugh’s presence in the San Diego area at the time of the murders. Projecting on the courtroom’s overhead display monitors Kavanaugh’s cell phone records from January and February 2010, he asked LaRock, “Are you familiar with what the 808 area code is?”
After LaRock said that he was not, Imes called upon LaRock to use his electronic device to ascertain the geographical region associated with the 808 area code. After defense objections, there followed a sidebar conference among the defense team and the prosecution with Judge Smith, after which Judge Smith agreed to take judicial notice that the 808 area code pertains to Hawaii. The page from Kavanaugh’s phone records which Imes displayed showed 19 phone calls, 15 outgoing and four incoming on the dates of January 31 and February 1, 2010, of which 16 had the 808 prefix. The three others reflected the 805 area code associated with San Luis Obisbo and its environs, the 949 area code associated with San Diego County and the 707 area code, associated with the San Francisco Bay area.
At another point in his cross examination of LaRock, Imes explored whether a VPN – a virtual private network – could obscure the actual location of a computer user logged onto the internet, in fact hiding the user’s IP address.
“A virtual private network will reflect an IP address for the network, not the device using the network, correct?” Imes asked.
“Generally speaking, that’s true,” LaRock said. “A virtual private network can be more complicated than that, but in general, yes.”
“And a virtual private network is commonly used by individuals to mask their IP address and location, correct?” Imes asked.
“It frequently is, yes,” responded LaRock.
Imes got LaRock to acknowledge that those logged into a virtual desktop environment or a VPN can use an IP address of a centralized network and not the IP address of the user’s individual device, and that there is a “plethora” of technologies to “mask” IP addresses and “spoof” IP addresses.
Imes suggested LaRock, a servant of the defense bar, has crossed over to the dark side, and is a tool of criminals and murderers, with whom he is on good terms. Imes said LaRock had lost his objectivity, which was reflected in LaRock referring to Merritt as “Chase.”
“So being that familiar with someone and referring to them by their nickname, that’s not very objective is it?” Imes asked LaRock.
“Actually I believe that is objective in this case,” responded LaRock.
Imes noted that LaRock used what he called “subjective” terminology in his reports, such as the word “notably” and the phrases “potentially very important” and “especially significant,” as well as “good business relationship” along with “significant source of income.”
“Using words like significant, especially and notably – those are subjective terms, aren’t they?” Imes asked.
“I suppose they can be defined that way,” said LaRock. “I think that in the context of my reports it was entirely proper to use those.”
In many of his questions, Imes implied or directly stated that LaRock had not done a thorough and complete analysis of all of the evidence. Imes also referred to a list of issues that LaRock had put together highlighting the areas he had investigated which he anticipated he would be questioned about as his “trial script.”
Imes explored the amount of money LaRock had made off of the case.
“How much are you getting paid for your services since 2015?” Imes asked.
“My company is charging $350 per hour,” LaRock answered.
“And how many hours have been billed since 2015?” Imes asked.
“I don’t have an exact number,” said LaRock. “It’s definitely more than 300. I believe it’s more than 350.”
“$122,000 since 2015,” said Imes, disgust welling in his voice.
“That’s correct,” said LaRock. “To my company.”
“In the world of criminal cases, you’ve handled how many cases?” Imes inquired.
“I’ll give an estimate,” LaRock said. “I’ve personally probably worked on I’d estimate between 75 and 100 criminal cases.”
“How many were for the Federal Public Defender?” Imes asked.
“I don’t know that as I sit here,” said LaRock. “I could try to estimate.”
“It’s important on your resume to list the scope of work you have done over the years,” Imes said. “Would that be fair to say?”
“I think it’s important to list examples of the work I’ve done,” LaRock said.
“And so in the criminal world you’ve worked for the Federal Public Defender, the Orange County Public Defender, the Riverside [County] Public Defender and several private defense firms,” said Imes. “Is that correct?”
“That’s a portion of the work I’ve done, yes” said LaRock.
“And has your firm ever been used or utilized by a law enforcement agency?” Imes asked.
“By a law enforcement agency? No,” LaRock said. “Not to my knowledge, at least.”
“Or a prosecutorial office?” Imes added.
“Same answer,” said LaRock.
LaRock’s testimony began late Tuesday and lasted through Wednesday and Thursday. There was no testimony on Monday because Merritt had been routed by the jail system to undergo a medical examination that day.
Early Tuesday Annette Dron, who had been a customer service representative supervisor for QuickBooks in 2010, was called to the witness stand by the defense. Her questioning by Maline was intended to attenuate the damage that had been done to his client by the testimony provided earlier in the trial by one of the QuickBooks customer service representatives Dron supervised, Ryan Baker. Baker had fielded a call from an individual purporting to be Joseph McStay on February 9, 2010, a day after the same individual, whom the prosecution has implied and the defense has all but conceded was Merritt, had made a call to another QuickBooks customer service representative, Sean Augustine, on February 8, 2010. Baker testified the caller had asked to have the account data deleted, which the prosecution maintains was an effort by Merritt to destroy evidence of the checks he had forged. The defense has countered that with suggestions that Merritt was merely acting on Joseph McStay’s desire to move the company’s account information off of QuickBooks’ online system, which McStay was concerned might be hacked by Kavanaugh, onto a more secure desktop program, which Kavanaugh would not be able to get access to. The defense maintains Merritt’s’ interaction with Augustine was a request to obtain the desktop program, known as QuickBooks Pro, and get it up and running and transfer the account data from the online program into it. His call to Augustine thus provided the proper context for the call to Baker and the request made of him, the defense contends.
Maline asked Dron if it was common for people to want to make the transition from the online version of QuickBooks to the desktop version.
“In the beginning people were very nervous about having their data somewhere else, and they were worried maybe someone would hack into it or the data would get deleted or corrupted, and so they would decide they wanted to go to QuickBooks Pro,” Dron said.
“Was it uncommon for somebody that had QuickBooks online to request QuickBooks Pro?” Maline asked.
“No,” said Dron.
“That happened all the time,” Maline said.
“Yes,” said Dron.
“Was it uncommon for a person who did that, who switched from QuickBooks online to QuickBooks Pro, to then cancel their QuickBooks online?” Maline asked.
“Objection, speculation,” Deputy District Attorney Melissa Rodriquez said.
“Overruled,” said Judge Smith.
“Yes,” said Dron.
“And why would that be?” Maline asked. “Why would that be not uncommon?”
“For the same reasons,” Dron said. “Where someone may be cancelling the subscription, they don’t want to pay for the subscription, they want to back up their data. QuickBooks online didn’t have all the features QuickBooks Pro had, so sometimes they found the online version wouldn’t work for them, and they wanted to go back and use something they were more comfortable with. There were many, many reasons.”
“And would customers not only cancel their QuickBooks online subscription, but ask that that information be deleted?” Maline asked.
“Objection, speculation,” protested Rodriguez.
“”Overruled,” Judge Smith said.
“Yes,” Dron answered.
“And why would that be?” Maline asked.
“I don’t remember a whole lot, but it was a pretty common thing,” Dron said. “Most of the time it was because they just didn’t feel comfortable with their data online at that time.”
“And what did you tell Detective [Troy] DuGal about this transaction?” Maline asked, referring to the San Diego County sheriff’s detective who was investigating the disappearance of the McStay family in 2010.
“I couldn’t find anything that was out of the ordinary from the cases I had seen,” said Dron. “It was all normal behavior.”
On cross examination, Rodriguez asked, “When somebody would call into QuickBooks and get information, is it fair to say that only the master administrator could request that the company be deleted?”
“That’s correct,” said Dron.
“And so when somebody called in and gave the telephone number of Joseph McStay and said they were Joseph McStay, was able to provide specific company information, the person receiving that call would essentially take that at face value, right?” asked Rodriguez.
“Correct,” Dron said.“There was a call, then, on the 9th to delete some of the data, right?” Rodriguez asked.
“Correct,” Dron said.
“And you have no way of knowing whether that company had actually been transferred onto a desktop version when that call came in on the 9th, right?” Rodriquez asked.
Don acknowledged that was the case.
“And so if that data had not yet been transferred, would it be a little more unusual to have somebody requesting to delete an entire company without transferring the data?” Rodriguez asked.
“People didn’t always transfer their data and then delete, but it would be more unusual,” Dron said.
Sandwiched between the testimony of Dron and LaRock on Tuesday was that of Sarah Kane, a custodian of records and a law enforcement fulfillment analyst for PayPal.
Kane went through records pertaining to the PayPal accounts of both Joseph McStay and Dan Kavanaugh, consisting of both transaction logs and activity logs relating to those accounts, shedding light on what the data contained in those records demonstrated.
In a seemingly straightforward response to questions being put to her by Maline, Kane, like LaRock would do after she left the stand, brought one of the elements in the case that the prosecution is relying upon to impute Merritt’s guilt into doubt. She confirmed that when Joseph McStay sought to add his wife as a third party to the PayPal account on February 3, 2010 using the Italian-sounding last name Martelli, he had entered it as “summer martelli,” using lowercase letters entirely. This registered with at least some courtroom observers as another indication that the prosecution had overreached in assigning responsibility to Merritt for having written the February 1, February 2, February 4, February 5 and February 8 checks based upon the way in which the payee’s names were left uncapitalized.
Kane’s testimony ran in Merritt’s favor in an even more pointed way, however, in that she advanced, more than LaRock had, the defense’s alternate suspect theory.
During her testimony with regard to both the activity and transaction logs on Joseph McStay’s PayPal account, she explicated how on February 10, 2010, six days after the McStay family’s disappearance, there was a failed log-in attempt on Joseph McStay’s PayPal account. That was followed by the resetting of the password for Joseph McStay’s account, carried out from a device with the 70.95.69.75 IP address, that corresponding to Dan Kavanaugh, on February 12. Thereafter, Joseph McStay’s PayPal account sent an $800 payment to Dan Kavanaugh.
Kane’s testimony appeared to have gotten under Imes’ skin.
In cross examining her, he did not miss the opportunity to suggest that the defense team or its members might have altered evidence Kane had presented in their client’s favor.
“Do you know exactly how these records are prepared?” Imes asked.
“Yes,” said Kane.
“How?” Imes asked.
“We have a series of systems, passive systems, and when we get a request we process it by searching for the item as provided,” Kane said. “So we pull the records, we have to log into the transaction log and put it into the form of an Excel spreadsheet that is provided.”
“You provide some information in a secured PDF, correct?” Imes asked.
“Yes,” Kane said, “the subscriber information, that is provided.”
“But the transaction stuff is sent in a spreadsheet,” said Imes.
“An Excel spreadsheet,” said Kane.
“It’s not protected, is it?” Imes asked.
“When we send it, yes,” said Kane.
“It is?” Imes intoned incredulously. “The ones that were sent – the ones I see here aren’t protected, were they?”
“I do not know,” Kane said.
“So, if I hit delete, I can make transactions disappear,” Imes said, and then hit the delete button on his laptop computer, thereby deleting elements of the spreadsheet that was visible on the courtroom’s viewing monitors.
“You just did,” said Kane.
“Did you or Mr. McGee or Mr. Maline have to enter a password to get into that spreadsheet?” Imes asked.
“No,” Kane said.
“So then it could be altered in some way by anyone, correct?” Imes asked.
“Objection,” McGee protested. “Calls for speculation.”
“Overruled,” said Judge Smith.
“If it’s not password protected, that information could be corrupted, couldn’t it? Imes pressed.
“Potentially,” Kane said.
“Potentially?” said Imes. “Did you have an opportunity to go over line by line, sheet by sheet to make sure the information provided was exactly the same as was found in the exhibit?”
“Yes,” Kane said. “I reviewed all of the records.”
“Well, one is like 600 pages long,” said Imes. “You went through all 600 pages?”
“When I pulled the accounts, I made sure they were there, yeah,” Kane said.
“So you compared every line of transactions and every sheet of every document you sent to make sure they were the same as those that were transmitted by PayPal,” Imes said.
“Not in detail,” said Kane, “but when we pulled from our systems, it has all of the transactions and all of the activity between the dates we request.”
At one point, in a show of the utter disdain he had for the witness, Imes said, “At this point, Your Honor, I move to strike her testimony. She’s an incompetent custodian of records.”
“Overruled,” said Judge Smith.
Present for much of this week’s testimony was Joseph McStay’s mother, Susan Blake. When she was asked her reaction to the evidence and testimony relating to Kavanaugh, Blake told the Sentinel, “I don’t have a statement at this time.” 

Hesperia City Councilman Bill Holland has begun to seriously rethink the move he made last July to engineer the appointment of Jeremiah Brosowske to the city council.
With Republican politics, and notably, a particular brand of Republican politics, having grown dominant in Hesperia, Holland’s calculation was he would be solidifying his position as one of the pillars of the community by installing Brosowke onto the council following the death of Mayor Russ Blewett last May. But now that it turns out the new generation of the Grand Old Party’s leadership has different ideas about how things should be run and wants to ease him out the door, Holland is talking counter-revolution.
Last summer, things were different. Holland’s almost blind loyalty to a narrow definition of what is good Republicanism led him to go along with a plan hatched by then-incumbent Councilman Paul Russ to arrange for Jeremiah Brosowske’s elevation to the council.
Brosowske had what a circle of Republicans believed were impeccable GOP credentials.
Homegrown in the Victor Valley, Brosowske graduated from Granite Hills High School in Apple Valley and he enrolled at Victor Valley College, where he was elected to the Associated Student Body Council and Senate, serving in the post of parliamentarian and ultimately rising to the position of ASB vice president. He became thoroughly involved in campus politics at Victor Valley College, including serving as a member of the budget committee and facilities committee. In addition, he served as the student representative on the Victor Valley College Measure JJ Oversight Committee, which was chartered to monitor the expenditure of $297.5 million in general obligation bonds to upgrade, expand, and construct school facilities passed by more than fifty-five percent of Victor Valley’s voters in November 2008.
From there, Brosowske was drawn into what has been a continual life in politics, Republican politics specifically. He became involved in a number of election or reelection campaigns. In 2013, Curt Hagman, who had served on the Chino Hills City Council as both a council member and mayor before garnering election to the California Assembly in 2008, was nearing the end of his allotted six years in the Assembly based on the term limit regulations in place at that time. He orchestrated a silent coup to move then-San Bernardino County Republican Party Chairman Robert Rego out of the county party’s top spot and assume it outright, better positioning himself to make a run for San Bernardino County Fourth District supervisor in 2014. Once he had acceded to the county party chairmanship, Hagman had repeated contact with the then-22-year-old Brosowske, who exhibited an uncommon enthusiasm and energetic intensity in his involvement on behalf of the party. Under Hagman’s tutelage, Brosowske was given one challenging assignment after another, which he dutifully fulfilled, gaining Hagman’s confidence.
Consequently, Hagman hired Brosowske at the age of 23 into the post of executive director of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. Brosowske, who was referred to by San Bernardino County party loyalists as “a young man with a plan,” sought to demonstrate his value to the party by pushing to staff party headquarters from 9-to-5 on weekdays and to bring in party volunteers to man the office on weekends. He involved himself in eight campaigns for Republican candidates. Hagman credited Brosowske with guiding all eight of those candidates to victory.
While he was in that executive director position in 2016, Brosowske made a political move on his own behalf, seeking election to the Republican Central Committee, upon which there are eight allotted slots representing the First Supervisorial District, eight allotted slots representing the county’s Second District, nine allotted slots representing the county’s Third District, five allotted slots representing the county’s Fourth District and three representing the county’s Fifth District. The county’s First District encompasses a major portion of the county’s desert region. Eleven people ran in that election, including then-Hesperia councilmen Eric Schmidt and Paul Russ, Hesperia Unified School District Board Member Eric Swanson and his wife, Rebekah Swanson. Though Brosowske had considerable experience by that point functioning in political circles, he had little in the way of name recognition among the electorate and he finished eleventh in the race.
Unfazed by his temporary setback at the hands of Republican voters, Brosowske remained loyal to the party. Hagman, as San Bernardino County’s Fourth District Supervisor, offered Brosowske a position with his office as an analyst. Brosowske, who had managed Paul Russ’s successful 2014 campaign for Hesperia City Council, remained active in promoting Republican candidates in local races, including that of Rebekah Swanson for Hesperia City Council in the 2016 race.
Despite Brosowske’s inability to vault electorally into a position on the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, there was a recognition among a core group in the local GOP that Brosowske possessed the charisma, attitude, perseverant dedication and temperament the party needed in its leadership and elected office holders to offset the increasing gap favoring the Democrats over the Republicans in San Bernardino County in terms of voter registration numbers. Among the Republican Party’s current crop of office holders including Hagman, a consensus had grown that Brosowske should be groomed for higher office, including supervisor, state legislature and Congress.
It was in 2016 that Mountain States Consulting Group emerged onto the San Bernardino County political scene. Without fanfare, the company put the 25-year-old Brosowske to work by contracting with Brosowske’s company, Next Generation Holdings LLC, securing for him his ability to support himself, while leaving him at liberty to pursue his political interests.
Eleven months ago, in May 2018, Hesperia Mayor Russ Blewett died. Rather than hold an election to fill the resulting vacancy or simply leaving the position unfilled until the November election when Blewett’s term was due to expire, the council, after elevating Councilman Bill Holland into the mayor’s position, invited residents of the city to apply for appointment to fill in the council gap.
Brosowske, along with Brigit Bennington, Victoria Dove, Russell Harris, Linda Holder, Robert Nelson, Anthony Rhoades, Veronica Rios and Chester Watts, applied for the council position. The competition was a ruse, as the outcome was predetermined. The fix was in. Brosowske was going to be the new councilman any way it shook out. After making a show of considering the applicants and interviewing all of them except Watts, who was infirm and could not attend, during a specially-scheduled meeting on the evening of July 11 the council voted 3-to-1, with Paul Russ, Bill Holland and Rebekah Swanson prevailing and councilman Larry Bird dissenting, to appoint Brosowske.
Holland, a former law enforcement officer, has a reputation for being somewhat intellectually challenged, slow on the uptake, vulnerable to manipulation by those who flatter him and making a show of embracing those espousing so-called conservative values whether that sentiment is sincere or not. He has a demonstrated history of making wishful interpretations.
The degree to which Holland understood the nature of Brosowske’s relationship to Bill Postmus, Mountain States Consulting Groups’ principal, is unclear.
Postmus, like Brosowske, was the political boy wonder of his day. Having associated himself in the early 1990s when he was then in his early twenties with the likes of then-California Assembly Republican Leader/later California Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte and Assemblywoman Kathleen Honeycutt, Postmus founded with Brad Mitzelfelt and Keith Olberg the High Desert Young Republicans. In 2000 while running as a conservative Christian-and-family-values Republican, Postmus was elected First District Supervisor, representing all of San Bernardino County’s desert communities. At the age of 29, he was the third youngest supervisor to ever serve in San Bernardino County throughout its then-147-year history.
Postmus continued to make a mercurial rise in political and governmental status and stature following his election as supervisor. In 2002, Paul Biane, a slightly older member of Postmus’s generation, was elected supervisor in the county’s Second District. Biane was like Postmus a Republican, and the two quickly formed a firm political alliance.
2004 was a watershed year for Postmus. In addition to being reelected as supervisor, he was chosen from among his peers to serve as chairman of the board of supervisors and was also elevated, as a member of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee to be its chairman. Simultaneously, Biane had likewise been elevated to vice chairman of the board of supervisors and the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. By virtue of his electoral office and the accumulation of seniority, rank and primacy pursuant to the offices he held combined with his political alliances, Postmus at that point bestrode San Bernardino County like a political colossus. In the summer of 2004 then-President George Bush invited Postmus to be among the select group of Republican Party members sharing the stage with him as he gave his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. As San Bernardino County’s GOP leader, Postmus adhered to a hardcore pro-law enforcement and national defense Republican line, touting fiscal and social conservatism, bemoaning the corrosive influence of liberalism and assailing Democrats at every turn.
In 2005, Postmus in tandem with Biane, orchestrated a power play to consolidate their power, inducing the central committee’s members to assent to surrendering to the central committee’s executive board the power to act, through a majority vote of its members, with the full authority of the central committee. Postmus and Biane then installed as members of the executive board both of themselves and, with a single exception, individuals who were employed by them as members of their county board of supervisors staffs. They thereafter had a complete lock on the San Bernardino County Republican Party apparatus and control of how local party money would be spent, rendering themselves virtual kingmakers.
In 2006, Postmus while he was still in seeming command of San Bernardino County’s political and governmental reins, spent slightly more than $4 million, which still stands as a record for the most money ever spent on a San Bernardino County electoral campaign, in a successful effort to replace the incumbent county assessor, Don Williamson. As assessor, Postmus had become the primary taxing authority in the county, with the discretion to cut landowners and business owners a break on the amount of property and asset taxes they are to pay on their land and equipment/vehicles/factories, by reducing the assessed valuations on that land and assets. For such favors, those large landowners and business owners provided him and candidates he designated with political contributions in return.
Before departing as supervisor to become assessor, Postmus prevailed upon his board colleagues to appoint Brad Mitzelfelt, his chief of staff and one of his closest political associates over the years, to serve out the remaining two years of his term as supervisor.
Less than two years into his term as assessor, there ensued a succession of revelations about Postmus that would dash forever his political prospects. The conservative persona he had exhibited publicly was in actuality diametric to every aspect of his private self. A severely drug addicted homosexual who wantonly engaged in a so-called P & P, or Party and Play, lifestyle, Postmus would on a daily basis troll specialty internet sites for men he had never before met interested in hooking up for one night stands in which they would engage in dawn-to-dusk methamphetamine-fueled sodomy marathons. Postmus’s methamphetamine use was prodigious, involving converting it into a liquefied form and using a syringe to inject it. He also had an affinity for amyl nitrate, as well as huffing, that is, engaging in the inhalation of chemical vapors from such sources as industrial solvents, paint thinner, gasoline, felt-tip markers, nail polish remover, glue, spray paint, aerosol sprays and nitrites, all for their euphoric effect these afforded. Top ranking county officials knew of Postmus’s drug use by his last year as supervisor, but had kept quiet about it, at least in part because of the tremendous authority and power he wielded over them.
Ultimately, after Postmus’s secrets were revealed and it became known that he had hired into high-paying assessor’s office positions no fewer than 13 of his political associates and/or one-time boyfriends who had no experience or expertise in the real estate industry nor skills with regard to property appraisal or taxing policy, he resigned from office. He was criminally prosecuted, pleading guilty to 14 felony public corruption charges. No fewer than eight of his political associates were likewise arrested and charged with various crimes relating to the abuse of the governmental system and violations of public trust growing out of their activities in conjunction with Postmus. Four of those were convicted.
Among the 14 felony political corruption charges Postmus pleaded guilty to were conflict of interest while holding public office, which carried with it his being banned for life from holding political office in California. The sentencing on those charges was postponed while Postmus cooperated with prosecutors in testifying against several of those with whom he had been involved in his depredations. As the trial for several of those was delayed for more than five years, Postmus remained free. Meanwhile, he longed to get back into the political game, but because of his conviction on the political conflict of interest while in office charge, he was unable to do so directly. Instead, he made his way back into politics indirectly, through associations with politicians who were in office or hopefuls intent on gaining election. To them, Postmus would serve as an advisor and spearhead their fundraising efforts, using his knowledge of how those who have a dog in the hunt when it comes to government regulations or government decisions relating to permitting projects or granting licenses are willing to pay money to influence votes. He used Mountain States as a laundering mechanism for them, taking money in from individuals or business entities that anticipated having to get government approval for this or that down the road, and then passing the money along to the office holders running for reelection or challengers seeking office, with the secret proviso that the recipients would take official action while in office that would meet with the original donors’ expectations. At the same time, Postmus involved himself in greasing the skids for speculators and investors looking to get involved in the nascent marijuana industry that was about to launch into the financial stratosphere based upon the 2016 passage of Proposition 64, the California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act. Postmus embraced the marijuana culture despite the consideration that it was absolutely antithetical to the conservative Christian family values he had propounded when he was an office holder. The money to be realized by jumping on the cannabis bandwagon and the opportunity that money provided to promote the candidates he was working with outran any such moral principles.
After Blewett’s Death, when Russ approached him and Councilwoman Rebekah Swanson with a plan to ensure that Brosowske would get the appointment, Holland, who had been put into the mayor’s post, went along.
On the day when Bennington, Dove, Harris, Holder, Nelson, Rhoades, Rios, Brosowske and Watts were to come before the council for interviews, it was arranged that Brosowske’s interview would be scheduled toward the end of the session. Former Hesperia Mayor and Councilman Bill Jensen, a Russ, Holland and Swanson ally, was present during those interviews, which were conducted such that any of the candidates who had yet to be interviewed were excluded from the room, a precaution ostensibly taken to prevent the candidates from seizing an advantage by either plagiarizing from the competition or using the heads-up to formulate an articulate or eloquent response. After listening to the questions, Jensen then left the council chambers and went out to report to Brosowske the questions being asked, giving him an opportunity to formulate what would sound like contemplative responses to each of those questions. Armed with that advantage, Brosowske came in and knocked ‘em dead, acquitting himself admirably, and providing Holland, Russ and Swanson with cover to do what they were going to do in any event, which was to appoint the 27-year-old to the council.
The appointment conferred on Brosowske the advantage of incumbency, which he used to his advantage in the upcoming November 2018 election, in which the seats to which Holland, Russ and Blewett had been elected or reelected in 2014 were to be contested. 2018 would be the first year in its history that Hesperia would hold district as opposed to citywide elections. As chance – or arrangement – would have it, Holland resides in District 2, which had its council seat up for election that year; Russ is a resident in District 3, which by chance or purpose had its council position up for election in 2018; and Brosowske is a resident of District 4, where a third city council contest was set for 2018. When their campaigns kicked off in July, just after Brosowske’s appointment to the council, the three endorsed each other. As November approached, however, some form of contretemps developed between Brosowske and Holland, and Brosowske withdrew his endorsement. Ultimately, Brosowske and Holland prevailed in their contests, each gaining a berth on the council for four more years. However, Russ, who considered himself to be an ally to both Brosowske and Holland, was turned out of office in the same election. Also in November, Postmus, after more than a seven-year delay, was at last sentenced, garnering a three-year term in state prison. Gone with him was Mountain States Consulting Group, and its ability to serve as a laundering agent for the money flooding into the coffers of local politicians from what many considered to be questionable sources, such as the cannabis industry. Indeed, Brosowske, despite his longtime association with the Republican Party, during the campaign had made clear that he was not opposed to Hesperia participating in the now-materializing marijuana bonanza, and taking part in the revenue stream taxing sales of the substance will produce.
After the election, no rapprochement between Holland and Brosowske took place. In fact, their differences widened. Then, last month, an effort to recall Holland from office materialized. Without citing exactly how it was that he knew, Holland said that Browsowke was behind the effort to remove him from office.
This week Holland doubled down on that assertion, simultaneously representing himself as being on the side of righteousness and virtue, law and order and all that is decent in Hesperia and the world; Browsowske, he said, is a disciple of the devil’s weed and the moral decay cannabis represents. It was true, Holland conceded, that he had been lured into allowing the distribution of medical marijuana in Hesperia, but that was only done out of compassion and with the approval of Blewett, whom Holland practically deified.
With Blewett now ascended into heaven, Holland said, those left on earth must come to terms with the fact that marijuana has its roots in hell. He was deceived, Holland said, when “a series of folks got up and talked about how necessary it was, how meaningful it was to their health and wellbeing. And there was an older couple who got up and spoke about having to drive in the night some fifty or sixty miles to obtain the medical cannabis. I’m a retired law enforcement officer of 31 years. At that point I was staunchly against. But like Mayor Blewett, my mind was changed, and we allowed cannabis deliveries.”
Holland sized up the degree to which the cannabis underworld, which he said includes its political consiglieri Brosowske, has wrapped its tentacles around Hesperia. “I believe there is six locations currently that distribute, and yet I’ve heard from the mayor as well as others in the education field that cannabis at school sites in rampant,” Holland said. “We’ve had several incidents of folks in the application process being bad actors and committing both administrative and criminal violations during the process. It was even an election issue. So, this has gone back and forth, and I met with a gentleman and his wife just before council who asked if there was any possibility of additional licenses coming from the city. I said the only reason that I approved the first and only license type was because I believed then it was medically necessary. However, that is not what is being requested. It’s not what is being pushed for, to be frank.”
It’s a battle of good vs. evil, between those who are virtuous such as himself against those of Brosowske’s ilk, a battle of those who want to ruin their lives and those of others with marijuana and those who will fight it, between those who uphold the law and those who break the law, Holland said. “That’s what this is about,” he said. “I was just served for recall. You might ask why do I make that comment now. I said about a month-and-a-half ago that my fellow council member Jeremiah Brosowske was behind it and I didn’t get proof of that until a couple weeks ago when Jeremiah said in a bar, bragged to several folks, one of which is a person I know well, that not only is he behind the recall, which is contradictory to what he said in that public setting, he has put $20,000 of his own money toward the recall and he’s here to bring the cannabis industry to the City of Hesperia in a big way, in every way possible.”
Holland said he is now Hesperia’s last hope in keeping the city from being consumed by the scourge of dope, and he characterized the fight against his recall as a crusade to prevent infidels like Brosowske from defiling the Holy Land of Hesperia. Divine guidance had led him to say what was true before and he is speaking with the authority of the Gospel now and in league with everything that is good and right about Hesperia, Holland said. “If I remember correctly, that is exactly what I said that night, that this is cannabis-driven, cannabis-related,” Holland said about the move to get him out of office. “I can tell you now: the proof’s in the pudding, folks. I only had that information second-hand. But the gentleman who sat and listened to Jeremiah, who by the way was actually bought a drink by Jeremiah, has written an affidavit to such. He can’t be here tonight, but at a future meeting will read the same.”
Holland’s critics and political opponents have long characterized him as being in the pocket of the development industry, and that he has put the interests of land speculators, contractors, builders and financiers above those of Hesperia’s residents, who have to commute using streets that are overburdened by traffic during rush hour or begin those commutes at the wee hours of the morning to avoid them. Holland, however, set aside any such suggestions, insisting that those who would profit by the sale of marijuana are the true greedy destroyers of the community, seeking to pump poison into the lungs of the populace for thirty pieces of silver, not he or the development community.  .
“When an industry believes they [sic] can control a city by controlling the council – and by controlling the city means they control how the city functions – you’ve got a big problem,” Holland said. “You’ve got a council member who during that bragging talked about bringing in his own city manager. There’s no mistaking that our current city manager is also a retired law enforcement officer, as is the assistant city manager. And the cannabis industry views us as a threat. If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Brosowske also claims some if not healthy earnings from the industry in consultation with many of his corporations or subcorps. So, in any event, I will tell you now, officially my position has changed on the cannabis delivery and all cannabis businesses, and from this moment forward I will be a resounding ‘no.’ And in fact, it might just be high time to bring the delivery service issue back before the council, at a future date.”
For the first two years Larry Bird was on the city council, Holland had little use for him, largely because he considered Bird to have been an obstructionist when it came to dealing with developmental issues, particularly Bird’s resistance to increases in the density of residential development. Holland’s political persona as a creature of the building industry consistently left him sharply at odds with Bird and his support network. Last year, when Russ and others were pushing for Brosowke’s inclusion on the council because of the perception that he would be a rubberstamp for the building industry, Holland followed suit. Bird provided the lone vote against elevating Brosowske to the council. At this point, however, Holland finds himself in league with Bird, who through the traditional rotation that takes place in Hesperia, is now the mayor.
“The mayor has termed this really a battle for the soul of Hesperia, not to put too fine a point on it,” Holland said. “You now have a young man who has finagled his way onto the council, fooled a lot of people, but now the light’s shown on him, and it’s going to get bright.”
Noting that Larry Nava, who was one of the candidates who ran against him in the November 2018 election and whom Brosowske has now befriended, served the recall papers on him, Holland said it is clear who the forces lining up against him are.
“This recall petition is simply a battle to change the quorum on this council as was bragged about in a public setting by Mr. Browsowski,” Holland said. “It is strictly geared to allow the cannabis industry to come full force into this city and create what it has already created in Adelanto. If that’s what you wish, then I’d say get behind this, but if not, the choice seems fairly simple. But I challenge you, Mr. Brosowske, to tell me, or tell the audience or tell the public that what I’ve said is untrue.”
Brosowske responded, “I definitely will. It seems like personal insult after personal insult. Mr. Holland’s claims are a little bit unfounded. Number one, I’m not trying to fire our city manager and I think we’ve had dialogue on that. Number two is I’ll make a commitment right here, right now, if Mr. Holland is recalled, during two years I will not make a vote on any cannabis items, because Mr. Holland wants to continuously make this about attacking me, attacking me, attacking me. This isn’t about attacking me. This is Mr. Holland’s personal issue with a developer. An item has been added to the agenda about apartment sizing and him [sic] and this developer went back and forth, back and forth. I have a relationship with that developer, but no different from other electeds who have a good relationship with that developer. So I think it’s unfounded to come up here and say ‘Cannabis. The city’s going to go up in smoke. The soul of the city [will be lost] without me being here.’ I think that’s a politician in a narcissistic way making a comment to make it about themselves [sic]. Cannabis is not my number one issue. I obviously campaigned on that and said I’d be for that, but number one, I think we have to look at how we develop the city, how do we bring the city forward. I think water rights are an important thing that on the council we’ve worked on, trying to get more water rights for the city. I’m not going to sit here and demonize the cannabis industry, though. Some cities in California, a lot of cities, have gotten on board with that. So, I’m not going to go to conferences and say negative things about that. And number two, to say, ‘A bar. You’re in a bar sitting.’ I mean, Bill, I just don’t understand how it’s always a personal attack on me.”
“Jeremiah, do you deny the comments?” Holland asked.
“I never said the comments,” Brosowske said.
“You deny the comments,” Holland said, skeptically.
“Have I put twenty grand toward your recall?” Brosowski asked, rhetorically. “I mean, go look. I advocate you go look for that paper trail, if I put twenty grand in to recall you. I would think a council member would maybe reach out to me and say ‘I want to see. Did you say “Hey, did you say ‘X, Y and Z’?” Instead it’s always this show of ‘Poor me,’ on this dais, and I don’t get that. I mean, if you have issues with me, reach out to me, have a conversation with me. Don’t take it to the dais and continuously whine and complain. I grew up in a household that you didn’t whine and complain. You went out there and you did things. And that’s what I continue to do. I don’t bring up my issues or my frustrations. I go out into the community and I reach out to residents. I go door-to-door in my district still, even after the election’s over, to hear peoples’ concerns. Do I think there’s a divide between City Hall and some of the average residents? Yeah, but I don’t blame that on the city manager. I blame that just as much on the council. You have to go out there and hear peoples’ concerns. And that’s not just Hesperia. I think that’s every government. So, I hope we can kind of work together and not just continuously throw jabs at me. ‘Oh, I heard from such and such. And I heard from such and such.’ I mean, it’s no big secret we haven’t gotten along for a long time, but that was with you doing your theatrics on the dais. ‘Oh I must pull my endorsement from…’ I mean, it’s not me throwing jabs at you in a public setting, so that’s what I’m disappointed in. I would think that the city is a business. I would hope that we could keep all this drama behind the scenes. Realize the city is a business, and we want people to come to Hesperia and businesses to come here. So, again, I hope the council would be mature enough to not continuously say this is all about the cannabis industry.”
Brosowske continued, “Like I said, I’ll commit to a year, maybe two years, if somebody wants to hold me to a year, if Mr. Holland is recalled, of not voting for any cannabis item, because if he’s recalled, that’s not what it’s about. It’s not me running the recall, and you can even ask the proponents of the recall if I’m behind it. I’m not. But I most certainly am going to get behind a candidate if you are so recalled, and I may give money out of my campaign committee to that candidate, because you have continuously blasted me again and again and again instead of trying to work with me. Now, Mr. Bird, on the contrary, has come to me several times and said ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ or tried to find commonality. And I just wish you could do the same thing.”
Recently, Brosowske spoke with the Sentinel. During that exchange he offered some insight on how it is that he has embraced the cannabis industry, in seeming defiance of conservative elements of the GOP.
Brosowske said that marijuana represents a new arena of entrepreneurship in California, and those who do not recognize that and adjust to it will be passed by. He said that despite his strong identification as a Republican, “I’ve always been a libertarian.”
–Mark Gutglueck

City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller utilized former County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereuax, who was serving in the capacity of the City of San Bernardino’s management consultant, to assist her in negotiating a legal settlement with the East Valley Water District in 2017, despite the consideration that Devereaux was also working for the water district. A majority of the San Bernardino City Council is intent on citing Miller’s toleration and encouragement of that conflict of interest as the grounds for her termination, the Sentinel has learned.
By firing Travis-Miller for cause, the city will avoid having to pay her the $430,000 she would otherwise have to be paid as a severance under the three-year contract she was provided with when she was hired in August 2017.
At the time of Travis-Miller’s hiring, the council lavishly praised her managerial talent, which was based in a certain measure on her having served in the capacity of San Bernardino’s assistant city manager just prior to that hiring, a stint as Covina’s city manager in 2015 and 2016, more than two years as the executive director of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments that began in 2013, and seven years as La Mirada city manager from 2001 to 2008. Perhaps most important in the council’s decision to hire her was that she had gone to work for San Bernardino in 2011 as an assistant to then-city manager Charles McNeeley, who in the face of significant and overwhelming financial challenges to the city, in April 2012 resigned. At that point, Travis-Miller was elevated to the position of acting city manager. In tandem with then-finance director Jason Simpson, Travis-Miller made a review of the city’s financial books, the conclusions of which were so startling that the city council in July 2012 resolved to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection on the basis of a 45-page report from Travis-Miller recommending the city do just that. The city did so the following month. Travis-Miller gamely soldiered on as acting city manager, disregarding the negative associations that attended her continuing association with a city in bankruptcy. Travis Miller’s standing as a law school graduate, a member of the California Bar and her practice with the law firm of Manning & Kass, Ellrod, Ramirez, Trestor from 2008 until 2011 also stood her in good stead with the council, members of which indicated they believed Travis-Miller had the breadth and depth of experience to handle the city’s top managerial assignment on her own.
Less than two month later, however, Travis-Miller requested and the council granted her permission to hire Greg Devereaux as a management consultant at $10,000 per month through a $120,000 per-year three-year contract with his firm, Worthington Partners, “for consulting services related to strategic planning and organizational development” and to engage in “mentoring employees and council members” by participating in “strategy development discussions… and developing operational goals and objectives and helping us to arrive at performance metrics for departments” during the city’s budget process.
Travis-Miller said she calculated that Devereaux would make “hourly $100 to $120 for about 20 to 25 hours of work per week.”
Devereaux’s hiring raised with many individuals immediate red flags. Her declared need for top-flight managerial assistance to get her arms around the 215,000-population city’s intractable problems was an acknowledgment that the celebration of her managerial expertise at the time of her hiring was a bit overblown. Moreover, Travis-Miller’s stated expectation that Devereaux would be available to devote as much as 20 hours a week to San Bernardino was absolutely unrealistic, given that he at that point had a commitment to remain as a management consultant with the County of San Bernardino through early 2020 for which he was to be paid $91,000 per year, had a consultancy contract with the Ontario International Airport Authority for which he was being paid $240,000 annually, had a consultancy contract with the East Valley Water District, for which he was being paid $120,000 per year, and consulting contracts with at least three other entities at that point.
In April 2016, which was prior to Miller being hired as assistant city manager as well as Devereaux’s departure as San Bernardino County’s chief executive officer, the City of San Bernardino, based upon direction provided to the city attorney the previous month, filed a lawsuit against the East Valley Water District and the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District relating to East Valley’s Sterling Water Recycling Plant project to be built near Indian Springs High School, which the city claimed was beset with major questions and problems. That project was projected upon completion to discharge roughly 6 million gallons of treated wastewater into the local groundwater basin per day.  The East Valley Water District was utilizing the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, a regional water wholesaler, to act as the lead agency on the project and carry out the environmental certification by inspecting and ratifying the environmental documents for the undertaking that had to be filed in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act.
Historically and currently, under a joint powers authority formed in 1958, untreated wastewater originating within the jurisdiction of the Highland-based East Valley Water District has been and is treated by the City of San Bernardino at the San Bernardino Municipal Water Department-run Margaret H. Chandler Water Reclamation Plant in San Bernardino, and then the rapid infiltration and extraction tertiary treatment facility in Colton, which is jointly owned by Colton and San Bernardino, but operated by San Bernardino. The purified water is then discharged into the Santa Ana River.
San Bernardino alleged there was no comprehensive cost analysis and total price tag for the Sterling project and the true cost, including the escalation of local water rates, and that the environmental impact report was inadequate in its provision of “substantial evidence or analysis” assuring the project would not substantially degrade water quality in the Bunker Hill Basin and would not harm the Santa Ana River sucker fish. The public health and cost implications of the project were exacerbated, the city claimed, by the absence of a process for “de-salting” groundwater, that is, the removal of nitrates and other untoward contaminants from the water.  Moreover, the suit alleged, the project did not take into consideration that the City of San Bernardino, through its water department, had arranged to make water treatment services available to the district, was continuing to make water treatment services available, was about to embark on its own wastewater recycling plant project, the San Bernardino’s Clean Water Factory, to recharge groundwater, and that if East Valley departed from the longstanding arrangement and began treating its own wastewater, then the San Bernardino’s water provider would stand to lose no less than $4.5 million annually for 20 years.
In response, both the Highland-based East Valley Water District and the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District asserted that the $128 million project, which was dubbed the Sterling Natural Resource Center, offered the best future arrangement for water treatment and local groundwater recharging as well as the best protection for ratepayers within the East Valley Water District, the cities of San Bernardino and Highland, and unincorporated San Bernardino County as well as the larger service area of the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District. The two entities in a joint statement called the lawsuit “politically motivated” and expressed “full confidence in our plan and a vision for the Sterling Natural Resource Center.”
In June 2016, San Bernardino followed up with a second lawsuit in which the East Valley Water District was the sole named defendant, alleging the district had violated state law in circumventing the disclosure process in the pubic scoping arrangement for the proposed sewage plant. The city maintained the East Valley Water District was proceeding with the project despite not having licensing or authorization to provide wastewater treatment and disposal services, and that it had neglected to seek that authorization from the San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission, which is charged with ascertaining jurisdictional boundaries relating to the provision of infrastructure and public services.
In January 2017, both the East Valley Water District and the San Bernardino Valley Muncipal Water District asked San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil, who was hearing the case against them, to dismiss it. Wohlfeil at that time rejected the motions. But after further hearings and considerations, Wohfeil ruled “The CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) process was adequately undertaken such that the lead agency and the public were reasonably able to analyze the costs and the benefits” of the Sterling Natural Resource Center.
The lawsuit against the East Valley Water District relating to the violation of the process that included excluding the San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission from looking into which entity would most logically be able to carry out the function of regional water purification and groundwater recharge proceeded.
In the fall of 2017, Travis-Miller took up the matter in earnest, looking to find a way to negotiate a settlement that would conceivably involve having the East Valley Water District abandon its plan to complete the Sterling Natural Resource Center and come to an accommodation by which San Bertnardino would continue to provide the regional water treatment service, facilitating the eventual construction of the city’s San Bernardino Clean Water Factory.
Travis Miller, however, turned to Devereaux to assist her in the negotiations with East Valley Water District. Either ignoring the consideration that Devereaux was also working for East Valley or perhaps hoping that he would use his influence with East Valley to craft a settlement that was favorable to the city, Devereaux drove the settlement negotiations toward an outcome that included East Valley simply being able to walk away from the 1958 joint powers agreement and no longer be required to use San Bernadino’s water reclamation services. San Bernardino would simply accept the loss of the $4 million in revenue it previously previously realized in the contractual deal with East Valley, but would be in some measure recompensed by the San Bernardino Valley Water District, which is the water wholesaler for the cities and communities of San Bernardino, Colton, Loma Linda, Redlands, Rialto, Bloomington, Highland, East Highland, Mentone, Grand Terrace and Yucaipa. Under the deal, the San Bernardino Valley Water District agreed to deliver 3,000 acre-feet of state water project water annually to San Bernardino for a period of 10 years, which is estimated to save the city at least $450,00 and perhaps as much as $600,000 over the next decade. East Valley also agreed to convey to the City of San Bernardino ownership of 22 acres it owns at the intersection of Sterling and Third streets near San Bernardino International Airport which was previously purchased for but never used as a new district headquarters site, for the city to develop as it sees fit. That property is hamstrung by contamination issues relating to fuel, solvent and other chemical spillages near the property while it was in use as an Army Air Corps and later Air Force base.
San Bernardino is to pay East Valley $8 million that the city over the years has collected from East Valley’s customers, under the terms of the joint powers authority agreement, for the future expansion of a large sewer line, contingent upon development in East Valley’s jurisdiction.
The City of San Bernardino also agreed to divert 3 billion gallons of water annually, which is used for regional recharge of the Santa Ana River and which could be marketed for as much as $8 million, to the Bunker Hill basin.
Over the last year of former Mayor Carey Davis’s tenure, a degree of dissatisfaction with Travis-Miller’s performance as city manager had developed on the council, though the level of discontent never reached anything approaching the needed four votes among the council’s seven members to put her job in jeopardy. With the November 2018 election, Valdivia displaced Davis and two of Valdivia’s allies – his cousin Ted Sanchez in Ward One and Sandra Ibarra in Ward Two – acceded to the council. While as mayor Valdivia has no direct vote, he can break ties or veto items that are passed by a three-to-two or four-to-three margin. Valdivia, when he was yet serving on the council in Ward Three, had gravitated toward a dislike of Travis-Miller. As mayor he is now gunning to oust her. With the support of Ibarra, Sanchez and Valdivia’s other council ally, Councilwoman Bessine Richard, placing Travis-Miller on administrative leave was effectuated last month when Valdivia voted to break a tie over the issue after councilmen Henry Nickel, Jim Mulvihill and Fred Shorett voted in closed session to keep Travis-Miller in place.
The current council is one member short, as Valdivia’s vacancy in Ward Three has not been filled. Valdivia’s ally, Juan Figueroa, has outspent his opponent, treasure Ortiz, in the mail-in ballot race, which is to conclude on May 7, to choose Valdivia’s Third Ward replacement. If Figueroa prevails, four solid votes to cashier Travis-Miller will be in place. The only issue is that she will be due another 15 months of her salary and benefits if she is set free before her contract expires in August 2020. The only way that payout can be avoided if she is fired is to make her departure one that was done for a stated reason.
Accordingly, the council contingent Valdivia heads has refocused its attention to something observers had picked up on in December 2017, when the settlement with the East Valley Water District was forged. While Travis-Miller’s insisted at the time “We need to get along with people who are our neighbors,” there was the perception that the settlement was in no way a good deal for the City of San Bernardino. Through the litigation, San Bernardino had already raised issues that convinced the state to begin withdrawing funding for the Sterling project, including a $15 million water recycling grant. San Bernardino, with its existing water treatment facility in place and the joint powers authority mandate, possessed leverage the water district simply did not. That Travis-Miller allowed Devereaux, whose loyalty to San Bernardino was compromised by his contractual relationship with East Valley, to take part in the negotiations now forms the basis for terminating Travis-Miller with cause, the Valdivia-aligned contingent on the council believes.
-Mark Gutgueck