District Attorney's Office
Posted by Pam Arnsberger
on Apr 28, 2016
Announcements and Reminders
Next week on May 6th is our annual Rotary fundraiser, a roast for Sam Farr, our retiring assemblyman. Be there at 5:00 for cocktails.
On May 28th and 29th we still need volunteers for the Aptos Music Festival. See Sandra to sign up.
Doug announced that there is a meeting tonight (4/28) on the future of the Rancho Del Mar shopping center.
Our District Attorney Jeff Rossell was the speaker today. He is a UCSC graduate and attended went to law school at USC. He has been in the District Attorney’s office for 26 years, first in Honolulu and now here since 1994.
Mr. Rossell described how cases get into court. Violent crimes are prosecuted by county DA’s. They have 34 district attorney in their office and 14 inspectors (detectives) that are in their office and work with them to solve cases. The overall staff is around 100 people including victim witness assistance program. There are misdemeanor and general felony units also there are special units for gang, sexual assault and domestic violence so victims don’t get passed from one unit or prosecutor to another.
Special courts include veteran’s court and the behavioral health court. A lot of individuals are arrested for the same sort of offences, especially mental health and substance abuse. These issues led to downtown accountability program. It has led to a 70% reduction in arrests.
Mr. Rossell then discussed current updates in the Consumer Affairs division. Money recovered can be used for only consumer affairs and now this income stream has helped to doubles the size of that unit. They are trying to do more community outreach end education on consumer issues. Examples include gym memberships that go on forever, dumping toxic chemicals, scams such as the IRS filing a lawsuit against you, missed jury duty, grandchildren stuck in another country who need money to get out and real estate property taxes following a death. You can google the DA’s website for the form for consumer complaints.
A lively question and answer period followed. It included questions about arson, the gang task force, cybercrime and jurisdictional issues, real vs nuisance complaints and Craig’s list complaints.