Comments@TheGussReport – Just when you thought City Attorney Mike Feuer’s office made enough poor decisions in the Wayne Spindler (photo above) gun case, his spokesman Rob Wilcox and prosecutor Eugene Hall, Jr. dug deeper and doing so may cost the taxpayers dearly.
Earlier this week in CityWatch, I wrote about how Feuer’s dubious gun charge against Spindler fizzled out in court. I was the only reporter present during the sentencing hearing and saw first-hand how it went down.
The day after my article was published, City News Service’s Craig Clough published a piece without having spoken with Spindler or, apparently, checking the public record.
Clough’s article stated that Spindler “pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor disturbing-the-peace charge” and “He was sentenced to a $200 fine and one day in county jail.”
Incorrect, incorrect, correct and incorrect.
The facts are as follows:
- Spindler did not plead guilty. He pled no contest.
- He did not plead to a misdemeanor. He pled to a non-criminal citation.
- He was not sentenced to any jail, as this was a citation and jail was not an option for Judge Andrea C. Thompson. Her only options were a fine and/or community service.
Spindler, whose guns were turned into law enforcement more than a year ago, and who turned in his gun clips last week, had to pay a $200 fine, which was more than offset by the part of a day Spindler spent at a police station during the booking process.
Spindler called Clough to advise his article was wrong and demanded CNS stop persecuting him. Clough allegedly told Spindler that he would issue only a partial retraction stating that Spindler in fact pled no contest to a citation, but many of the media outlets that published Clough’s incorrect version did not publish his corrected one, if in fact Clough published his correction.
Clough declined to state on the record whether he asked Wilcox how Spindler could be sentenced to jail for a non-criminal citation where jail was not a sentencing option.
When I reached Wilcox on his Sacramento-area cell phone number, without hearing my question, he shouted “no comment” and hung up. A follow-up email to him, Feuer and Hall, Jr. asking if they stood by Wilcox’s claims to City News Service has not been returned.
Spindler believes that Wilcox, who is not an attorney according to the California Bar Association, and prosecutor Hall, Jr. are also the sources for the false story originally written about the case by LA Times reporter Emily Alpert Reyes. In his upcoming legal actions against the Times and the City of Los Angeles, Spindler intends to depose all three of them, and others.
More facts: Spindler says he will ask Judge Thompson to hold Hall, Jr. in contempt; to dismiss the case entirely and find him factually innocent; and ask for sanctions and restitution.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. Verifiable tips and story ideas can be sent to him at [email protected]. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.)
-cw
