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| | Might Does Not Make Right For Orange County Police And Deputy Sheriffs. No Crime In Photographing Sim Hoffman, M.D. On The Sidewalk. Part II.
By Lonce LaMon - August 13, 2012
The link to Part I of this two part series can be found here.
frankie4 at 8:13 PM August 07, 2012
Los Angeles Times
one thing is for sure the police lie about everything and are nothing but cowards. they are very dangerous and cold-blooded killers. there is no rise in crime or the make-believe gangs. the police are lazy. and want the people to know one thing they are God, do not question, do not protect yourself, do not say anything to a cop or they will murder you, do not call them for help, if your house was broken into to bad they will not help, say something you will end up in prison. its time for the people to wake up get rid of the police unions get real police who care about the people. they get more dangerous every day.
Back in late 2009 and early 2010, I was covering the Preliminary Hearing for the case against Hector Porrata, Rene Montes, George Martinez, and Cara Cruz-Thompson, which in my articles during that time I referred to as the AIG-Matrix embezzlement case. In that case, Rene Montes, who had formerly been a workers’ compensation adjuster at Sedgwick in Riverside, California, had after leaving Sedgwick, set up a fictitious surgery center in around 2004 called Workers’ Compensation Surgery Center or WCSC, with a location in La Habra and another one in Riverside.
He was acting as a phony middle man between AIG and Matrix and the actual medical provider-lien claimants, in cahoots with Hector Porrata and Cara Cruz-Thompson at Matrix Absence Management in the Inland Empire, and then with Hector, Cara, and George Martinez later at AIG in Costa Mesa. The three adjusters, Hector, Cara, and George, would pay the liens to Rene Montes who was the vendor WCSC, and then Rene would pay the actual provider after taking some money out of the middle. Rene would then kick-back in one form or another to Hector, George, and Cara.
Photo by Lonce LaMon. All rights reserved.
Then Craig Garner, the CEO of Coast Plaza Doctors’ Hospital in Norwalk, caught on to the scam. That’s who eventually blew the whistle on the foursome in 2006 and filed a civil law suit. He wondered where some of his payments had gone, as Rene was skipping more and more payments to the providers as time went on and the money increasingly went up his nose. Finally, the foursome was arrested in May of 2009.
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I went through an ordeal of misinformation before I finally got an interview at the jail with Cara Cruz-Thompson in December of 2009. |
Well, in that court room of Judge Elaine Streger, where the Preliminary Hearing for Hector, Cara, Rene, and George began in December of 2009, there was a Sheriff’s Deputy working as the Bailiff who was quite the ruthless dominatrix. Her name was Cherry DeMaio. I’ll never forget her.
After I read the rules for interviewing inmates at the Orange County Jail, which is only one short block from the court house, and also discussed the guidelines for journalists with the deputies there, I understood that audio devices were allowed for interviewing inmates and also for note-taking by journalists in the court rooms. Absolutely no video or still photography was allowed. This I well understood.
The run-around and the contrasts in information I got from one deputy to the next at the Santa Ana jail could comprise a set of articles all by itself, but distilling it all down, I went through an ordeal of misinformation before I finally got an interview at the jail with Cara Cruz-Thompson in December of 2009.
So, I sat down one day in the nearly empty seating area of the court room where the Preliminary Hearing was taking place, and set my audio recorder on the arm rest in front of me. At one point, Deputy DeMaio asked me in a reprimanding tone if the device she had just spotted was mine, and I stated that yes it certainly was. Then she launched into her tirade against me.
She flipped out, seized my device, confiscated it, and made a huge to-do about it. She reported it to the judge. Thus, the Honorable Elaine Streger told me she would hear my case about my recording device in
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Fortunately, my recorder was returned to me, but only after a consideration of holding me in contempt of court. |
that afternoon. Therefore, right after lunch I had to stand up in court and explain myself. Fortunately, my recorder was returned to me, but only after a consideration of holding me in contempt of court. Fortunately as well, I was not held in contempt of court.
The next morning, Deputy DeMaio confronted me aggressively as I came through the door, telling me “I have trust issues with you!” She demanded to search my purse. I was shocked that she would have any “trust issues” with me at all, as I had made myself perfectly clear that I believed from the communications from the other deputies that using a recording instrument for note taking was acceptable for media professionals. And I had filled out all the paperwork in the bond and booking department that was required to be a registered journalist with the Orange County jail system.
If I acted against the rules of the court, it was clear I did so inadvertently, as my actions were clearly a result of a misunderstanding. Thus, if I believe I am acting within the rules, it’s not that I am deliberately breaking them if my belief is sincere and I break them out of a mistaken belief. Why would I so obviously place my digital audio recorder out inplain view if I were trying to be devious? It was so crystal clear by my unabashed, obvious openness that I believed the use of an audio device was completely acceptable. Otherwise, I would have concealed it; hidden it in my brassiere or purse.
But Deputy DeMaio was compelled to ostentatiously display her power, and react to me as if I were a deceitful liar. She pulled everything out of my purse and checked every pocket. Little did it dawn upon her that her department of deputies may not have communicated well with me.
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I was standing here (indicated by red arrow) when confronted and harassed by an Orange County deputy on May 18th 2012 while trying to photograph insurance fraudster Sim Hoffman, M.D.. Photo by Lonce LaMon. All rights reserved.
Now in May of 2012, while attempting to photograph and shoot video of Sim Hoffman, M.D. in front of the court house on the sidewalk, Deputy Fernando Serrano was calling me a liar and communicating to me with a notice that stated photography and filming were not permitted inside the courthouse while here I was clearly photographing outside the courthouse on what was previously described to me approximately 18 months prior by another deputy as the public sidewalk.
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If I acted against the rules of the court, it was clear I did so inadvertently, as my actions were clearly a result of a misunderstanding. |
Deputy Cherry DeMaio did not stop riding me like I was her bicycle after she rifled through my purse.
She barked at me when during a court break I put my Blackberry up to my ear to simply listen silently to my voice mail messages. She called out at me that no cell phone use was permitted in the court room, while all the attorneys in that court room openly were using their cell phones right at the table in front of the judge’s bench. Even when I explained to her that I was merely listening to voice mail which no one in court could hear, she demanded that I get out of the room.
Finally when DeMaio saw me with a small cup of coffee with a secure lid on it, she reprimanded me for having a drink in the court room. She just wouldn’t let up…
This woman deputy was quite obsessed with displaying her power. So overtaken was she by her power complex that her personality couldn’t discern that I had been a victim of a miscommunication over my belief that I could use an audio recorder. So, she must be very narcissistic and only able to function in human relationships through wielding of power.
These power complexes are what are most dangerous in law enforcement professionals and they need to be screened out with the right pre-employment psychological testing. Many tests are available through the various psychiatric groups that can be used to select the right personalities for the Sheriff’s and Police Departments in all cities and counties.
Power complexes need to be identified and individuals suffering from them need to never be hired by law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, too many individuals strive to go into law enforcement professionally out of a need for personal power, analogous to how too many men go into the Catholic priest
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I have had my photography sabotaged... my trip bore no fruit due to a Sheriff's deputy's destruction of my work and abuse of my person. |
hood because they don’t have developed adult sexualities and, therefore, can hide-out in the priesthood with their infantile sexualities and be predators and exploiters of children.
It is this thirst for power and the need to display it that caused the Rodney King beating in 1993, the death of Kelly Thomas in Fullerton in 2011, the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, and the deaths of two young Latino men, Manuel Angel Diaz and Joel Acevedo, in Anaheim just two and a half weeks ago.
It is also the reason for the harassment of this photo-journalist in and outside of the Orange County Superior Court House from 2009 to 2012. This harassment is destructive and it needs to stop.
I have been psychologically abused to the point of feeling depressed after performing my job duties which require my attendance at the Orange County Superior Court. I have had my photography sabotaged. I have lost money in hotel and gasoline expenses because my trip bore no fruit due to a Sheriff’s deputy’s destruction of my work and abuse of my person.
I have considered taking a small claim action against Deputy Serrano for reimbursement for my lost expenses while in the course and scope of my employment. If the harassment continues in the future, I will more seriously consider it.
John McDonald, the Orange County Sheriff's Department Media Relations' Director, sent me through here with total consideration and courtesy to interview Cara Cruz-Thompson in December of 2009. Cara was a workers' compensation claims adjuster who was incarcerated for one full year from 2009 to 2010. The deputy who attended to me behind the glass was so respectful I felt like he rolled out the red carpet. Photo by Lonce LaMon. All rights reserved.
But there has been one representative of the Orange County Sheriff’s office who has been a superior professional, and that is Director of Media Relations, John McDonald. McDonald’s helpfulness, consideration, total respectfulness, and competence in arranging interviews for me with Cara Cruz-Thompson and Hector Porrata went over-the-top in professional consideration. His actions are exemplary of how all Sheriff’s department professionals should conduct themselves.
When I arrived at the jail in December of 2009 to talk to Cara Cruz-Thompson after McDonald set up the interview, the deputy who greeted me behind the one way mirrored glass was respectful in a manner that was also exemplary. He did not rifle through my purse, he did not frisk me, and he even waved me past the security machines which were turned off.
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... the O.C. is over the top with a power complex. |
I am sorry I never learned his name, but since he was predominantly behind that one way mirrored glass I couldn’t see his name tag. However, I’ll never forget how in a most accommodating voice he instructed me to just walk on in and past the shut-down security machines as if he were rolling out a red carpet.
The contrast between him and John McDonald together, against so many other deputies in and around the Orange County jail and Superior Court has been striking.
So overall, in spite of one or two excellent officers, there is a propensity going on with law enforcement in Orange County at this time that is powerfully concerning me. Not that extreme abuse of power doesn’t happen elsewhere in the world with law enforcement; oh, it certainly does!; it’s just that I’m feeling the contrast of abuse in Orange County in comparison, for example, to Los Angeles where I get nothing but smiles from LAPD and LA County deputies, which make it clear to me that the O.C. is over the top with a power complex.
That final line that frankie4 wrote as a blogger to the L.A. Times on August 7th really resonates with me: “They get more dangerous every day.”
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