From The Official Transcript Of Ruling In Cubbison Case

Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman’s Feb 25 decision to toss out the felony prosecution of Mendocino County Auditor Chamise Cubbison and former Payroll Manager Paula June Kennedy is a damning indictment of how the controversial criminal case was managed from the beginning.

An official court transcript of Moorman’s findings is worthy of publishing verbatim.

The Cubbison case outcome is being celebrated by supporters of the reinstated County Auditor, and Kennedy. The two veteran county workers were accused of criminally misappropriating public funds to pay Kennedy about $68,000 in extra pay over a three-year period during the Covid pandemic.

Cubbison and Kennedy’s professional reputations were shattered and their personal lives put in upheaval during a 17-month long ordeal that ended with Judge Moorman’s strongly worded dismissal.

Judge Moorman in her decision makes no direct note of District Attorney David Eyster’s actions in the politically laced case, and his secret attempts to assist county supervisors and executives in a plan to force consolidation of the two key county financial offices, do away with their elected positions, and eventually shift control to the Board of Supervisors.

However, court records and documents show it was Eyster’s decision to file charges against Cubbison and Kennedy and then hire a special outside prosecutor at the rate of $400 per hour to take the controversial case to trial. The District Attorney did so after conducting his own year-long review of the case including further investigation by DA investigators.

Eyster in the meantime attempted to pressure Cubbison into resigning in return for a misdemeanor criminal filing. Cubbison, proclaiming her innocence, chose to fight.

Eyster filed charges against Cubbison and Kennedy in October 2023. The case dragged on for 17 months before Moorman’s ruling quashed his efforts and Cubbison won immediate reinstatement to her position. Typically, criminal cases clear preliminary hearings and go on to trial because the legal bar is low.

Now, pending Cubbison civil litigation will determine how much damages taxpayers will pay if Cubbison’s claims of denial of due process are upheld against the county Board of Supervisors and a list of “John Does” including Eyster and CEO Darcie Antle.

Moorman’s commentary zeroes in on the evidence and testimony of key witnesses Eyster relied upon and turned over to Special Prosecutor Traci Carrillo of Sonoma County to pursue prosecution.

Moorman’s ruling also underscores the “willful ignorance” she found on the part of county administrators.

Excerpts from Moorman’s ruling focusing on three key figures in the case:

CUBBISON: “Regardless of anything else that I may say today, there's vastly insufficient evidence for -- for the Court to find anybody acted with criminal negligence, whether she had authority to have these payments made. And, again, this was completely transparent.”

KENNEDY: “And the evidence with regard to Ms. Kennedy is that, as Mr. McCurry laid out, working these extraordinary hours, every county employee for the County of Mendocino should be thanking her for having been paid during that time frame.· She was working all nights and weekends, not able to use the CTO that she had accumulated. … The evidence is clear to me that she was frayed emotionally by the time all of this came to light, that she was suffering under an inordinate amount of stress, not only because of the responsibilities to her job but also the stress that she was experiencing because she couldn't get any relief, because she couldn't take any time off because there is no one else to do the job.”

FORMER AUDITOR LLOYD WEER: “And I think Mr. Weer, the evidence of the commencement of the 470 payments that show up from the very first time they were paid, his statements to Detective Porter, his evasiveness on the witness stand, his purported failure of recollection, his willful and deliberate ignorance by not reading his email all to me point to the fact that he said something to her that made her believe she had authority.”