It’s not every day that our reporting results in immediate impact.
Reporters pour their hearts and souls into investigations for months, and sometimes it can take years for action to catch up. That’s not what happened last week.
On Friday, Aug. 28, Jakob McWhinney broke the news that an ex-sheriff’s deputy who was convicted of assaulting women in San Diego had a new job as a chaplain for an organization that provides support and mentorship to police officers in the region.
Former Sheriff’s Deputy Ricky Fisher’s crimes against women rocked the county. More than 20 women came forward with allegations against Fisher. Some women were assaulted during traffic stops, and others after calling the Sheriff’s Office for help. The assaults ranged from groping to forcing them to perform oral sex on him.
Fisher’s crimes cost the county $10 million in civil case settlements and drove a rift between the community and the Sheriff’s Office, Jakob wrote.
Dozens of news outlets picked up our story after we published it. Then it caught state Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s attention. She told Jakob that his article made her “blood boil.”
She contacted Sheriff Kelly Martinez, District Attorney Summer Stephan and other legislators to push the organization, Christian Law Enforcement Fellowship, to cut ties with Fisher. By Tuesday, Sept. 1, Fisher was out of the organization.
“It was shocking that he was working in a capacity of this type of responsibility and with this kind of authority. For him to be associated with law enforcement in a chaplaincy role was very offensive to me,” Martinez told Jakob. “I’m grateful that they did remove him from the organization … I don’t think they really understood or recognized the harm that an action like this would make.”
Behind Voice: Chismeando with Jakob
Andrea: Jakob, as soon as you confirmed Fisher’s new job, you jumped on this story and turned it around in one day. (Quite a feat for any reporter!) Why was it important to you to get this news out?
Jakob: It would be hard to overstate the impact Fischer’s abuses had on the San Diego region. There’s virtually no one in our society in whom we place more trust than law enforcement and, simply put, he betrayed that trust — egregiously.
That betrayal impacts not only his victims, who were incredibly shaken by the news he had been given a position of spiritual authority, but everyone who interacts with law enforcement. That reality made it feel imperative to get this story out, and to get it out as quickly as possible.
Andrea: You spoke to the president of the organization that hired Fisher. What was his logic on hiring someone with such a dark past?
Jakob: Jerry Hara, the president of CLEF, had a simple explanation for the organization’s decision to hire Fischer: he’d changed. Or rather, he’d been forgiven by God. Redeemed, even.
Andrea: On that note, some could argue that this guy served his time for his crimes, and would question why his new job was a big deal for us to report. What would you say to that?
Jakob: I think that’s a fine defense when it comes to reintegrating someone into society. Incarceration should be a rehabilitative business. But someone being “redeemed” and going on to live a productive life feels meaningfully different than someone being “redeemed” and then immediately being placed, again, in a position of spiritual authority over people.
Beyond that, the arbitrary standard of rehabilitation inherent in the concept of “God has forgiven someone” is tricky. Conversations with God are, by their nature, pretty private affairs. A mantra in journalism is “If your mom says she loves you, get a second source,” and Mother Mary doesn’t usually give comment. The inherent subjectivity of that reasoning made it hard to buy a redemption story.
But what really tipped the scales for me was speaking with Dan Gilleon, a lawyer who represented nearly two dozen of Fischer’s victims. He wasn’t sold on Fischer’s redemption narrative for a very simple reason: “Repenting so he doesn’t burn in hell forever is one thing, but actually making amends to the victims is where the rubber meets the road and he hasn’t done that.”
After all, Fischer only served a couple of years for his myriad of crimes. And as Gilleon also told me, Fischer didn’t fully admit to all his crimes. He strategically pled guilty to a small subset of them.
This Week’s Obsession
I’ve been following the murder case of Rebecca “Becky” Marodi, a fire captain with Cal Fire, since the first news story about her death in February of last year. Her mother found her dead in her Ramona home with multiple stab wounds.
Her wife, Yolanda Marodi, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison this week.
The case, if you’re not familiar with it, is heartbreaking and shocking.
Yolanda had previously been in prison for murdering her first spouse, James Joseph Olejniczak in Fontana. He was found stabbed to death in 2000.
According to law enforcement authorities, Rebecca was stabbed 23 times and part of the attack was captured on the couple’s doorbell camera. The recording, which was not made public, captured Rebecca saying, “Yolanda! Please … ! I don’t want to die!”
Yolanda responded, “You should have thought of that before.”
NBC 7’s Allison Ash spoke to Rebecca’s mother, Lorena Marodi, who told her Rebecca knew about Yolanda’s past, but that her daughter praised her wife for turning her life around. But she added, “Becky wouldn’t tell me everything.”
It’s unclear how many details of the Olejniczak case Rebecca knew. Her friends spoke to LA Times reporter Summer Lin and said Rebecca never mentioned her wife’s past. Though they recalled that Yolanda portrayed herself as a victim and a survivor of bad relationships.
At the sentencing hearing, Rebecca’s friends and loved ones had an opportunity to confront Yolanda. Rebecca’s friends told Yolanda that she was “an ugly shell of a human being” and a “coward.” Lorena spoke about refusing to allow Yolanda’s darkness to consume her despite being haunted every day by the image of her daughter on the floor with stab wounds.
You’re reading this on Monday because it’s a long weekend and I forgot to publish. Enjoy the day and stay cool!
