Last night I got a call from Paul Levikow, a public information officer for the district attorney, who said Bonnie Dumanis, the DA, had been reading my blog post and she thought it was “erroneous.”
I had written that she was passing a hot potato. But Dumanis was not trying to avoid or get out of prosecuting Tom Story, Levikow said. When she sent this pleading to the judge Monday she was just trying to make it clear that people shouldn’t automatically assume that its her deal now that City Attorney Mike Aguirre has been thrown off the case.
Her submission is full of reasons why she shouldn’t be the one to prosecute Tom Story.
But I was wrong, the DA says, to interpret this as meaning that she didn’t want the case.
Levikow said that a cover letter sent with the brief Dumanis wrote would make it clear that she wants the case, or at least, that she didn’t not want it.
He sent that letter over this morning. Here’s that part of it.
The law suggests that the Court should consider calling for a special prosecutor to be named, thus allowing the City of San Diego, through their City Council, to hire outside counsel to conduct the prosecution of their alleged municipal code violations. While the San Diego County District Attorney stands ready to assist, the Court should be aware of the law in this regard.
The interpretation of all this, apparently, is supposed to be that Dumanis just wants it to be known that it’s not necessarily her job to take over this prosecution and that if someone makes it her job, she has to be reimbursed.
So it’s not that she doesn’t want the case. And it’s not that she does want the case. She just doesn’t not want the case.
OK, Bonnie, thanks for clearing that one up.