Two conflicting portrayals of suspended Mendocino County Auditor Chamise Cubbison emerged Thursday during a second day of testimony during a preliminary hearing on criminal charges filed against her and the county’s former Payroll Manager.
The hearing, scheduled for two days, continues next Tuesday. Its outcome will determine whether Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman orders the contentious case to trial or dismisses the felony charges as sought in a motion by defense attorneys for Cubbison and co-defendant Paula June Kennedy.
Cubbison was described by current CEO Darcie Antle as “angry, abusive” and displaying a “confrontational tone” when she learned of county administrator’s plan to strip the Auditor’s Office of its payroll oversight. Antle said she felt threatened, and so unsettled that she put her reactions in writing days later.
“I thought she was less than professional,” testified Antle.
Sheriff’s Investigator Andrew Porter, however, described Cubbison as calm and cooperative when the criminal probe was launched.
Porter said Cubbison met with him repeatedly during the early days of the investigation, and explained how a disputed county pay code was involved. Porter said he initially interviewed Cubbison while she sat in his “pickup outside her office.”
Cubbison denied, however, telling Kennedy to use it to cover the large volume of hours the Payroll Manager was putting in during the Covid pandemic to meet payrolls, according to Porter.
Porter said he quickly learned that it was in fact Cubbison who triggered the criminal investigation by alerting the County Counsel’s Office of a Kennedy threat to quit and sue the county for payment of 390 hours of uncompensated work over a three-year period.
Porter said he originally obtained from Cubbison a spreadsheet Kennedy kept of the extra payments she made to herself that contained regular entries of “per Lloyd,” or “per Chamise.” Later, the county’s IT department provided him with a copy that had been retrieved from Kennedy’s computer files.
Cubbison attorney Chris Andrian, a noted Santa Rosa defense lawyer, grilled Antle about her involvement behind the scenes about events that led to criminal charges being filed, and the subsequent takeover by the CEO office of the county payroll. Antle at times brushed aside questions, saying “I wasn’t CEO then.”
Kennedy’s lawyer Fredricco McCurry, a county Public Defender, sharply questioned Antle about County polices and procedures and how they compared to state and federal laws. He zeroed in on Antle’s earlier testimony that she testified she feared the County might be breaking the law by allowing Kennedy to single handedly work so many hours to meet the county payroll.
McCurry asked what might have happened had the county payroll not been done on time.
“1,200 employees would not have been paid,” responded Antle. McCurry then wanted to know what steps might have been taken, and whether that included the possible termination of Kennedy.
Antle sidestepped the question by saying her likely first action would have been development of a “performance improvement plan.”
At the end of two days of testimony, the Cubbison case appears so far to be one of “he said, she said, they said,” based on an earlier description by Andrian.
For the first time, however, the level of engagement District Attorney David Eyster in political events preceding Cubbison’s arrest and criminal charging emerged in the ongoing, long-delayed criminal case. Until now the DA’s role had been confined to documents on file in a parallel civil case Cubbison has filed against the County Board of Supervisors for denying her due process.
On Thursday, however, a recently disclosed private memo was cited, written by DA Eyster to a County supervisor advocating board members block Cubbison’s appointment in 2021 as interim Auditor.
The three-page Eyster memo includes details of a three-step plan where the DA secretly advocated for County supervisors to do away with an elected Auditor-Controller and an elected Treasurer-Tax Collector and merge the two offices into a single Department of Finance to be under the control of board members. Supervisors eventually did this, but their overall goal for control was thwarted when voters in 2022 elected Cubbison to lead the combined offices.
Antle acknowledged Thursday that her former boss Carmel Angelo had sent her and two other county administrators a copy of the Eyster memo the day before he showed up at a board meeting in 2021 and publicly denounced Cubbison.
Antle deflected how seriously she and others in the CEO’s office took Eyster’s private email, saying he is “known for his strong opinions.”
Why Eyster publicly denounced Cubbison and blocked her interim appointment remains the subject of speculation, but focuses on the DA’s reported vendetta against her because as retired Auditor Lloyd Weer’s chief assistant she had repeatedly questioned the DA office’s own spending practices.
Antle in other testimony Thursday reinforced a perception that Cubbison, and Weer before her, jealously guarded the Auditor’s Office independence.
Antle testified that Weer while still in office told the CEO’s office in “no uncertain terms” that he would fight to keep the County Auditor’s Office as the official watchdog of the county payroll.
Cubbison during a later confrontation with Antle told her the CEO staff was too inexperienced to manage the complexities of the county payroll.
Special prosecutor Traci Carrillo, hired by Eyster to take the Cubbison case to trial, aimed at showing felony criminal intent on the part of Cubbison and Kennedy. Any confirmation is yet to be made.
Porter is expected to testify about specific details when the hearing resumes next week.
Cubbison chose to fight the felony charge, rather than accept an early Eyster offer to reduce it to a misdemeanor if she resigned.
A recall petition against Eyster, Moorman, and any current menber of thr BOS who voted to suspend Cubbison without pay seems appropriate at this time. No preliminary hearing over one year after Cubbison’s arrest is absurd!
That’s not how things work. Moorman is the judge impartially hearing the case. She has nothing to do with the events in question, the County CEO’ s or Supervisors’ actions, or with the DA or his decision to prosecute Cubbison.
Looks like the foxes want to guard the hen house
Mike just hit on the key to this case. Criminal Intent or just the word Intent.
Weer and Cubbison were both trying to figure out how to get Kennedy paid for work she did. No matter how they do it, Weer or Cubbison, do not benefit.
Let’s look at DA Dave, he had a Christmas office dinner at the Broiler Steakhouse which included guests/spouses. He then turned a receipt into the Auditor for training. Remember the word intent, he knew this was a party not training, so he manufactured a fake request to get paid back. I argue this could be fraud.
Every prosecutor must prove intent, which case would you prosecute?
Everyone should be concerned about the next steps the Board of Supervisors (BOS) is taking to get rid of this office, Auditor/Controller/Treasurer/Tax Collector, that is independently elected and not under control of the BOS to a Finanace Director position directly under the BOS. Although they have already denied us our elected official and have placed these duties under themselves by suspending an elected official and having Sara Pierce from the Clerk of the Board/CEO office as an Interim (we have yet to hear the ramifications/charges of these unlawful actions by the BOS).
Please keep in mind that we, the voters, have to approve this change from a voted/elected position to an appointed one. But currently the BOS is circumventing this process, for the next several years, by this collaboration between the District Attorney and themselves.
Us taxpayers should be very concerned about the types of reimbursements and expenditures that are being paid without the oversight of our independently elected official.