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Cicinelli, Wolfe
This amazing story was printed yesterday by the Fullerton Observer, and reprinted with permission of the author, Fullerton artist Jesse La Tour.
Two former Fullerton police officers who were fired over the beating/death of local homeless man Kelly Thomas have sued the city of Fullerton to get their jobs back, plus retroactive lost pay.
The officers are Jay Cicinelli and Joseph Wolfe, both of whom were charged by the Orange County District Attorney with excessive force and involuntary manslaughter in 2012 over the much-publicized beating and death of Kelly Thomas. Both officers were fired over the incident.
Cicinelli, along with officer Manuel Ramos, went to trial in 2014. Both were acquitted of all charges, including excessive force, prompting one of the largest protests in Fullerton history.
For most Fullertonians, this was the end of the tragic saga of Kelly Thomas.
But for Cicinelli and Wolfe (whose charges were dropped), the acquittal provided grounds for suing the city. If, according to the jury, they had done nothing wrong, by that logic, they should not have been fired.
In 2015, unbeknownst to most Fullerton residents, in light of the verdict, Cicinelli appealed his firing and there was an “evidentiary hearing” before Hearing Officer Michael Prihar, who has decided in favor of several California police officers fired due to excessive force or other misconduct.
Hearing Officer Prihar decided in October 2016 that Cicinelli’s “termina- tion was unreasonable” and he recommended that Cicinelli “be reinstated to his former position with full back-pay and benefits.”
According to Prihar, Cicinelli’s conduct “was not unreasonable and therefore did not violate Department policy.” This conduct included kneeing Thomas in the head twice, tasing him, and smashing his face several times with the taser.
In 2016, the city of Fullerton appealed the Prihar decision, and in February 2017 denied Cicinelli’s appeal, rejecting Prihar’s findings.
In June of 2017, Cicinelli sued the city to get his job back and receive retroactive pay. Cicinelli’s next hearing is scheduled for May 31st, 2018.
Officer Joseph Wolfe is also suing the city to get his job back and for retroactive pay.
His case is distinct from Cicinelli’s in that Orange County DA Tony Rackaukas decided to drop the charges against him after Cicinelli and Manuel Ramos were acquitted.
Wolfe’s case is also unique from Cicinelli’s in that his lawsuit also includes former Fullerton Police Chief Dan Hughes and former Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz.
Like Cicinelli, Wolfe contends that he was unfairly terminated. Unlike Cicinelli, and perhaps hurting his case, is the fact that Wolfe did not cooperate with the independent review of the Kelly Thomas death, back in 2012. Wolfe’s hearing is scheduled for June 8th, 2018.
Thus, it is possible that the taxpayers of Fullerton will have to pay money to re-hire two police officers directly involved with the death of an unarmed homeless man, Kelly Thomas.
Kelly Thomas was brutally beaten by six members of the Fullerton Police Department on July 5, 2011. He was in a coma for five days and died five days later.
Medical records show that bones in his face were broken and he choked on his own blood. The coroner concluded that compression of the thorax made it impossible for Thomas to breathe normally and deprived his brain of oxygen.
What about the Gennaco report which was very critical of the conduct of all the police involved. These pages were of course not released until after the trial and received very little attention at the time, but if we want to stop these killers from profiting off of a murder, it is crucial that the Gennaco findings (the missing pages from the original report) become part of the public discussion on this. Also, I assure Jesse that this was the biggest protest in Fullerton history, not one of the biggest.
What abot Ramos? And im not surprised given that we just learned that the sheriffs deputy that was the school resource officer at Parkland School in Florida took up a position outside the building and never entered to confront and kill the shooter. Good guy with a gun my ass!
Sean Paden on Facebook:
This is why settling with Ron Thomas was such a bad idea. Had we taken the Thomas case to Trial any finding that the Cicinelli and/or Wolfe were at fault for Thomas’s death would have been res judicata in their wrongful termination suits. Instead, the Fullerton taxpayers will be expected to pay out for wrongfully firing Cicinelli and Wolfe and for wrongfully NOT firing them sooner.
I say “expected” because I don’t think we legally owe them one dime – their conduct was malicious, it cost taxpayers millions, Wolfe refused to cooperate with the investigation and Cicinelli committed workers compensation fraud to get this job in the first place so he has no real damages – but Dick Jones will probably convince 3 City Councilmembers to cough up 50% of our road fund for the next five years to pay off these cretins anyway.
Was Sean offering Ron free legal representation?
As someone who has often gone out on the limb and seen people with ladders and parachutes lose interest and toddle off after a while, I’m leery of people without skin in the game proclaiming what it is that people with skin in the game should have done. I was disappointed that Ron Thomas settled too — but it’s not like those of us who cared were willing to front him a large chunk of the expected settlement so that he’d have to make sacrifices for the public good. (Sean, get over here!)
Huh? Why would I want or need to provide representation to Ron Thomas? I was offering advise to the Fullerton Taxpayers, because God knows someone in Fullerton needs to be looking out for their interest.
First of all, Wolfe and Cicinelli were defendants in the civil lawsuit. Yes, Fullerton as their employer would have to pay any judgment but any judgment against Wolfe and Cicinelli that held they were legally responsible for Thomas’s death, even civilly, could have been used against them in their threatened wrongful termination lawsuit. Second, a Trial would have given us an understanding of the inner workings of the FPD that is otherwise shielded by the Copley decision.
Third, I believe that had the matter gone to Trial, the Judgement would have been far less than $4.9 million. Ron Thomas had a major hurdle to overcome – since he wasn’t Kelly’s legal guardian he could only sue for his own personal pain and suffering and not for what Kelly endured. And even if he had been able to overcome that hurdle, look at the lawsuit over the shooting death of Manuel Diaz – that jury verdict was less than 5% of what we paid ($200,000). Yes, there’s the legal fees we saved but those fees are going to be spent litigating the “wrongful” termination lawsuits filed by Cicinelli and Wolfe.
And finally, there was no deterrent value to paying out $4.9 million to Ron Thomas. The settlement was primarily paid by Fullerton taxpayers but they weren’t the ones who beat Kelly Thomas 100 times in the face with the butt end of a taser, that was Cicinelli’s doing. Making us pay for his degeneracy deters nothing in the future, especially if the city opens up their wallet a second to pay him off for firing him in the first place.
Sean, some of us know exactly what you meant. It was quite clear.
I could be wrong, but I believe the report I am referring to was released in September 2016. I’ve tried finding it on line, but I can’t. The Fullerton Reformer had posted a link to it, but it’s no longer available from their site. If anyone can get their hands on it, it should be linked to this site because it gives many reasons for their firing that are not related to the charges they were found not guilty in such as giving false statements, not turning on the DAR etc.
We may also see Gennaco himself soon; he’s contracted with the City of Anaheim now. If nobody can find this before we see him, we will ask.
I have a copy.