(UPDATED: MAY 26: So far, Ventura County has paid the Cerritos-based law firm of Atkinson Andelson Loya Rudd and Romo more than $2.3 million in legal costs for representing the county and the District Attorney’ Office in the Joseph Cipollini and Mark Volpei lawsuits, Chuck Pode, the county’s risk manager stated in an email on Tuesday.
The $2.3 million breaks down like this: So far, paid $1.7 million for legal costs for the Cipollini case, and $642,271 for legal work on the Volpei case, Pode stated. No further payments are expected on the Volpei case, Pode stated.
Also Attorney Alan E. Wisotsky, of Oxnard, was paid $69,204 for his law firm’s work in the Volpei case. Wisotsky was fired after the Velasquez case. The county hired Atkinson Andelson Loya Rudd and Romo to handle the Volpei case.
BY RAUL HERNANDEZ
VENTURA, CALIF. — The county agreed to settle another retaliation lawsuit filed by a former District 
Attorney investigator against the District Attorney for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Last month, the county agreed to pay former DA investigator Joseph Cipollini $750,000 to settle a retaliation lawsuit against the DA.
In August, the county also agreed to pay another DA investigator Mark Volpei $850,000 to settle his retaliation lawsuit.
In both settlement agreements, the county and the District Attorney’s Office admitted no wrongdoing.
Five former DA investigators filed separate lawsuits against Ventura County, the District Attorney’s Office, naming as individual defendants, District Attorney Greg Totten along with other current and past DA employees.
The lawsuits allege retaliation or discrimination or both.
In addition to the financial damages from the lawsuits, the Board of Supervisors approved millions of dollars in payments for legal and court costs to defend the five lawsuits.
In a lawsuit filed in 2011, Cipollini alleged that the District Attorney’s Office retaliated against him after he became involved in three cases involving DA investigators who alleged discrimination or retaliation or both against the DA’s Office in 2008. Cipollini gave a desposition in former DA investigator Tammy Schwitzer’s sexual discrimination lawsuit.
Also Cipollini gave depositions in former DA investigator Robert Velasquez’s retaliation and harassment lawsuit and in former DA investigator Leslie Robertson’s sexual discrimination lawsuit
A judge later dismissed Schweitzer’s lawsuit, and Robertson dropped her suit.
Three years ago, a jury awarded Velasquez $1.3 million as damages for retaliation, The Ventura County Star reported
According to the Settlement agreement document in the Cipollini, the plaintiffs and defendants agreed not to discuss the terms of the agreement, why the case was finally settled after four years of litigation or how the monetary damage – approved by the County Board of Supervisors – was reached?
Also in the Volpei case, the county agreed to a similar nondisclosure clause in the settlement agreement.
Millions in Legal, Settlements and Court Costs
American Justice Notebook reported in December that Ventura County Board of Supervisors approved payments of millions dollars in settlement money, as payment on the Velasquez jury award and for ongoing legal costs to defend the lawsuits.
In December, the legal costs and fees alone incurred by Ventura County for hiring two law firm to represent it and the District Attorney’s Office total $2.4 million, according to information provided to American Justice by Ventura County Risk Manager Chuck Pode.
Attorney Edward C. Ho, whose Cerritos-California based law firm Atkinson Andelson Loya Rudd and Romo represented the county, declined to comment this week. He said he is “bound” by the terms of the agreement not to talk about the Cipollini settlement or the case.
He said he got a copy of the written settlement in mid-May.
Calls to Cipollini’s lawyer Mark Pachowicz were not returned.
Plaintiffs and Defendants and Nondisclosure
In both of these settlements, the legal language states that disclosure of the terms of the settlement by the plaintiffs or defendants, except as required by law, would be considered a breach.
In addition, the settlements state that Cipollini and Volpei must destroy or return documents, including files, emails, reports, memoranda and correspondence belonging to the county.
The settlement agreements state that if anyone asks: “How the action was resolved?” The response must be the following: “The matter was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties” or “words of similar import.”
Questions Remain Unanswered About Volpei’s Allegations
The terms of the settlement agreements make it very difficult to get information about the serious and explosive accusations that Volpei made in court papers.
Specifically, Volpei accused high ranking officials – Totten, Former District Attorney Michael Bradbury, former Oxnard Police Chief Crombach and Ventura County supervisors with the Public Guardian’s Office – of unethical, unprofessional and possibly “criminal behavior.”
In his Case Management Conference Order submitted to the court and dated April 30, 2014, Volpei makes specific and serious accusations.
The Cipollini and Volpei cases contain volumes of court documents. The court filings, however, offer few details regarding Volpei’s allegations.
But in a court filing on May 14, 2014, Volpei alleged that a “reliable confidential informant” told him that in 2001 the ex-girlfriend of then District Attorney Bradbury was leaking confidential information about the investigation of the Hell’s Angels to its president, George Christie, who was facing felony drug charges.
Pachowicz, a former county prosecutor, and then county prosecutor Jeffrey Bennett were assigned to the Hells Angels criminal case in 2001.
The May 11 court document further states: “Volpei reported the information directly to D.A. Mike Bradbury. Mr. Bradbury told Volpei to document the information in a memorandum and provide it to the Chief Deputy of the Bureau of Investigation, Gary Auer, and Volpei complied with that request.”
“On May 31, 2001, Gary Auer sent an email to Volpei on another matter, but commented in the email that ‘by the way,’ he had received two memorandums from Volpei regarding the confidential informant, and had forwarded them on to the Chief Assistant District Attorney Greg Totten, and Michael Schwartz, a Senior Deputy District Attorney.”
Additionally, the court document states: “Volpei questioned and disputed his supervisors as the propriety and legality of withholding information and manipulating events in the Hell’s Angels case and other cases and the potential that such conduct could be viewed as unethical and criminal.”
“Rather than addressing Volpei’s concerns, his supervisors retaliated against him by revoking his transfer to the Forensic Lab, removing his high-profile homicide cases, and other diminishing his job duties,” Volpei stated in his document.
Public Guardian’s Office
In addition, the document states that Volpei was ordered to limit his investigation of the Public Guardian’s Office or PGO. During the course of his three-year investigation, Volpei’s found missing client finance files, court-ordered accounting that was left out and hundreds of thousands of dollars were missing, the court documents states.
He insisted on a comprehensive audit of the estate of the conservatives under the Public Guardian’s control. His recommendations were disregarded and he was ordered to limit his investigation, court documents indicate.
“Volpei was ordered by D.A. Greg Totten not to investigate the PGO, but to only go after the ‘low-hanging-fruit’ – that is, only two lower level employees,” the court document states.
Former Oxnard Police Chief
Volpei alleged in his Case Management Conference Order that former Police Chief John Crombach was allegedly having sexual relations with Michelle Garcia, an alleged female criminal defendant that Crombach’s department investigated for fraud.
The Garcia case was sent to the district attorney by the Oxnard Police Department for possible prosecution.
It was assigned to Volpei for further investigative work.
Volpei maintains that the Garcia case findings along with two other separate and unrelated investigations resulted in cover-ups and threats against him.
Thefts and Mismanagement
In 2008, Volpei states that the D.A.’s Office elected to prosecute only low-level defendants for all the thefts and mismanagement of the Public Guardian’s Office.
Pachowicz represented one of the defendants in the Public Guardian case.
“During the course of trial preparation, Volpei witnessed County Senior Deputy District Attorney Howard Wise coaching prosecution witnesses with answers he wanted to solicited at trial,” a court document states.
Pachowicz called Volpei to testify about the “improper tactics” of Wise, the court document states.
After testifying, the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation’s Assistant Chief Glen Kitzmann and “the management of the D.A.” were upset with him. Volpei claims he was transferred from the Financial Crimes Unit to oversea the Subpoena Unit, even though he had received training related to financial crimes, according to court documents.
In 2008, Volpei states he sought medical treatment for a shoulder injury. After shoulder surgery, Volpei stated that he tried to return to work. He was aware that others with similar disabilities were accommodated.
Volpei claims he was forced to quit his job in 2010 after the harassment became unbearable and no accommodations were made for a work-related injury, the lawsuit states. He began working with the DA’s office in 1994.