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Bakersfield has strange politics.
We have a candidate for City Council, Martin Bertram, who admits he hacked into a elected officials computer.
On Thursday his arraignment by the District Attorney was held.. And he is being investigated for lying to the FBI. That could be a felony.
"Those reports state that when sheriff's Deputy Samuel Smith confronted Bertram with Mettler's (a local school board member) accusation he'd stolen private campaign documents on July 17, Bertram denied it and told Smith he'd denied similar accusations to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Bertram denied them again when he and Smith met to discuss the results of the investigation on Sept. 9, reports state.
But Smith's investigation report states that when Smith confronted Bertram with evidence of his activity, Bertram broke down, his eyes "began to fill with tears" and he admitted accessing Mettler's e-mail account through the Go.Daddy hosting service in April, snooping around and leaking what he found to the media and to Republican activists he hoped would abandon their support for Mettler's campaign for the 32nd Assembly District Republican nomination in June." See story here.
Now the question is, who did he do this for? Who did he give the information to?
From the police report" "page 9 of 18 on the report, second to the last paragraph it states:
"I determined Martin Bertram had lied to the FBI and me, delayed and obstructed me in the line of my duties."
Here is the search warrant.
His consultant is Mark Abernathy.
Then you have Bakersfield City Councilman Zack Scrivner. Thirteen years ago he was arrested and plead guilty to, "Court transcripts obtained by The Californian Tuesday show Scrivner pleaded guilty -- not "no contest," as has sometimes been reported in recent days -- to a felony charge of marijuana cultivation. The original charge from the district attorney was for marijuana possession for the "purpose of sale," but the plea deal to a lesser charge allowed Scrivner to attend a drug program that kept his criminal record clean."
For years he has kept this a secret. Should the public had known?
"The transcript also shows a drug scale and other items were seized from his apartment on Del Playa Drive in Isla Vista, the densely populated, mostly student community next to campus.
"All of the monies that were seized at the time of your arrest, the $780, as well as all the instrumentalities of the crime, including the scale and the pipes and the marijuana and everything else, will be forfeited to the state," Dudley told Scrivner. "Do you understand that?"
"Yes, I do," Scrivner replied.
Records show he enrolled in a drug treatment program at an Isla Vista clinic but completed the program in Kern County." See story here.
Here are the charges against him.
Scrivner is running for Kern County Board of Supervisors.
His political consultant is Mark Abernathy.
Then you have this guy collecting absentee ballots, illegally.
"Republican activist Alberto Llamas said Friday he and his volunteer campaign workers were the ones who took the vote-by-mail ballot of Bakersfield resident Jeanette Macias this week, which touched off a voter fraud investigation that made national news.
But he disputed her claim that his workers demanded she turn over her ballot, calling Macias a Democratic activist who forced the workers to take her ballot as a ploy to cause trouble.
The Kern County District Attorney's office is investigating the situation."
See full story here.
Is it the heat of Bakersfield? Is it the "machine"? Are these the type of folks we want in politics?
More...
We have a candidate for City Council, Martin Bertram, who admits he hacked into a elected officials computer.
On Thursday his arraignment by the District Attorney was held.. And he is being investigated for lying to the FBI. That could be a felony.
"Those reports state that when sheriff's Deputy Samuel Smith confronted Bertram with Mettler's (a local school board member) accusation he'd stolen private campaign documents on July 17, Bertram denied it and told Smith he'd denied similar accusations to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Bertram denied them again when he and Smith met to discuss the results of the investigation on Sept. 9, reports state.
But Smith's investigation report states that when Smith confronted Bertram with evidence of his activity, Bertram broke down, his eyes "began to fill with tears" and he admitted accessing Mettler's e-mail account through the Go.Daddy hosting service in April, snooping around and leaking what he found to the media and to Republican activists he hoped would abandon their support for Mettler's campaign for the 32nd Assembly District Republican nomination in June." See story here.
Now the question is, who did he do this for? Who did he give the information to?
From the police report" "page 9 of 18 on the report, second to the last paragraph it states:
"I determined Martin Bertram had lied to the FBI and me, delayed and obstructed me in the line of my duties."
Here is the search warrant.
His consultant is Mark Abernathy.
Then you have Bakersfield City Councilman Zack Scrivner. Thirteen years ago he was arrested and plead guilty to, "Court transcripts obtained by The Californian Tuesday show Scrivner pleaded guilty -- not "no contest," as has sometimes been reported in recent days -- to a felony charge of marijuana cultivation. The original charge from the district attorney was for marijuana possession for the "purpose of sale," but the plea deal to a lesser charge allowed Scrivner to attend a drug program that kept his criminal record clean."
For years he has kept this a secret. Should the public had known?
"The transcript also shows a drug scale and other items were seized from his apartment on Del Playa Drive in Isla Vista, the densely populated, mostly student community next to campus.
"All of the monies that were seized at the time of your arrest, the $780, as well as all the instrumentalities of the crime, including the scale and the pipes and the marijuana and everything else, will be forfeited to the state," Dudley told Scrivner. "Do you understand that?"
"Yes, I do," Scrivner replied.
Records show he enrolled in a drug treatment program at an Isla Vista clinic but completed the program in Kern County." See story here.
Here are the charges against him.
Scrivner is running for Kern County Board of Supervisors.
His political consultant is Mark Abernathy.
Then you have this guy collecting absentee ballots, illegally.
"Republican activist Alberto Llamas said Friday he and his volunteer campaign workers were the ones who took the vote-by-mail ballot of Bakersfield resident Jeanette Macias this week, which touched off a voter fraud investigation that made national news.
But he disputed her claim that his workers demanded she turn over her ballot, calling Macias a Democratic activist who forced the workers to take her ballot as a ploy to cause trouble.
The Kern County District Attorney's office is investigating the situation."
See full story here.
Is it the heat of Bakersfield? Is it the "machine"? Are these the type of folks we want in politics?
More...