DEPUTIES SUPPORT GALLEGOS RECALL AS D.A. RETOOLS LAWSUIT AGAINST PACIFIC
LUMBER

County sheriff's deputies have loaded more ammunition into a local recall
drive by accusing District Attorney Paul Gallegos of being "soft" and
backing the fledgling effort to remove him from office.

Those moves were made on May 28, when David Morey, the president of the
Humboldt Deputy Sheriffs' Organization, helmed a press conference on the
steps of the Humboldt County Courthouse and announced that most of the
union's members voted to support Gallegos' ousting at a May 19 meeting.

The recall effort rode the upswell of controversy from Gallegos' decision to
file a multimillion dollar fraud case against local timber industry kingpin
Pacific Lumber Company last February. Now early in the process of gathering
the signatures needed to get a recall election on the ballot, those who want
Gallegos bounced have emphasized crimefighting as a core issue.

So has the Sheriffs' Organization. "Our decision to support the recall was
based on a number of serious concerns raised by our membership," said Morey
at the conference. "Members are deeply troubled by the D.A.'s soft approach
to criminal prosecution, his liberal stance on the growing and possession of
marijuana and his excessive use of plea bargaining."

Not Pals With Paul?

Morey also said Gallegos' working relationships with law enforcement
officers are deteriorating. He singled out a newspaper remark Gallegos had
made on not wanting to be "chummy" with law enforcement, characterizing it
as "poppycock."

The county needs a D.A. that will work well with police, Morey continued.
"It certainly is [Gallegos'] job to be cooperative with law enforcement."

He said his organization was extremely reluctant to announce its stance, and
did so only after intense debate at a May 19 meeting. But Morey specified
that the argumentation was limited to whether or not to go public, and none
of the deputies in the group had offered support for Gallegos or his
policies.

And the reason for the reluctance, Morey said, was because of what he called
"backlash." Some members felt that retaliation from Gallegos could come in
the form of lack of follow-through were an officer to be involved in a
shooting situation or other circumstances requiring a D.A. probe.

"There's always the potential for backlash in law enforcement," said Morey.

He didn't offer specifics on the union's voting at the conference, but in an
interview, Morey said about 70 percent of the union's 146 members voted to
back the recall.

Some of the rest abstained or voted no because of they didn't want the
organization to enter the political arena or feared retaliation from
Gallegos, Morey continued.

But he said most deputies view Gallegos as an official who's not fulfilling
his job title. "[Gallegos] is a former defense attorney and has only been
prosecuting cases for a few months - he needs to sit down with the officers
who have more experience than he does and listen to what they have to say,"
Morey added. "And what he has to learn is that he should represent the
victims of crimes, not suspects. His job is not defense and prosecution, he
needs to be a prosecutor." Morey and his group's members believe Gallegos is
being too indulgent with suspects. Criminal cases are being pleaded out
before reaching court, Morey continued.

Pot: Conservative Approach

Morey's organization would also prefer "a little bit more of a conservative
approach to marijuana." He cited former D.A. Terry Farmer's 10-plant and
one-pound a year medicinal marijuana limit as a satisfactory one.

Not so with Gallegos' 99-plant, three-pound a year prosecution guideline.
"The temptation to divert [cannabis into the black market] is high," Morey
asserted, saying that Gallegos' guidelines allow "a lot of marijuana for one
person to possess" and "run the risk of undermining what case law
[Proposition 215, the state law allowing medicinal use] is for."

Morey firmly denied that the recall effort's kick-starter, Gallegos' fraud
lawsuit against Pacific Lumber Company, is tied to the endorsement. "This is
not about Pacific Lumber for us - we're interested in local crime and the
way it affects our community."

He regretted the possible appearance of his group being being "puppeted" by
Pacific Lumber.

The Sheriffs' Organization action is being coordinated with the group
engineering the recall, Morey admitted, and recall organizer Rick Brazeau
was standing with him during the press conference.

In an interview, Brazeau said he thinks the endorsement will buoy the
recall's odds of success. Interest in petitioning to get a recall election
on the ballot has been "huge," Brazeau continued. He added that he's gotten
numerous requests for petition sheets and the day after the deputies'
announcement saw a spike in phone inquiries on where to go to sign one.

Locations where petitioning is ongoing include Hoby's Market in the Pacific
Lumber-owned town of Scotia, Hooven Excavation in McKinleyville, Peterson
Tractor Company in Eureka and Hansen's Coffee Shop and Truck Stop in
Fortuna.

'Prove It'

Gallegos rejected Morey's characterizations and remarked that the
organization president had failed to show up as a witness earlier in the
week, resulting in a case dismissal.

The D.A. was asked about the portrayal of his approach being "soft."

"Prove it," Gallegos demanded. He said tabulations of his office's track
record since last January shows a 20 percent increase in the number of cases
filed for prosecution. "One can readily see how crowded our courts are,"
Gallegos continued, saying that he has to filter out weaker cases because of
limited courtroom capacity.

"And suspects are just that - innocent until proven guilty," the D.A. said.
"We evaluate cases not on the basis of probable cause for arrest as police
officers do, but whether there's a good likelihood we can prove guilt beyond
a reasonable doubt before 12 community members."

Gallegos said he's dealing with a nearly 25 percent budget cut and despite
that has increased prosecution caseloads. He was asked about the deputies'
assertion that he's uncooperative.

"My office has to be cooperative with police, but we don't represent law
enforcement, we represent the community," Gallegos answered. "The police
officers do the work, the investigations, but the people of the county are
my office's clients. You don't let police officers run the show, because we
are the people's attorneys."

On the 215 guidelines, Gallegos said they were "misstated" by Morey. The
application of a space limit (of a 100 square feet growing area) prevents
large grows more effectively than Farmer's "arbitrary" limits. Gallegos also
faulted Morey for saying that his limit was 100 plants instead of 99 at the
press conference.

"Why did he add an extra plant, for sex appeal?" Gallegos asked.

Finally, the D.A. said that resources have to be concentrated on large-scale
marijuana grows, not reasonably-sized medicinal ones.

'Evidence And The Law'

Gallegos said his interactions with police have been "favorable" and he
doubts that the organization vote represents a true majority of deputies.
Nor will he change his attitude, he continued, to effect the "backlash"
Morey mentioned.

"We make decisions here based on evidence and the law, it's that simple,"
Gallegos added. He said his prosecution decisions reflect the actions "of an
independent office that doesn't give anyone special treatment, and I think
that's a little troubling to some people, because they perceive themselves
as having a lack of control."

The Sheriff's Organization includes deputies as well as probation officers,
welfare fraud investigators and Gallegos' own investigators. "And my
investigators are not happy, because they feel that the (organization's)
decision was made before it was actually done."

A press release from the D.A.'s nine investigators, faxed just prior to
press time, backed that claim. "The statement made by Dave Morey on May 29
did not accurately reflect the true position of the District Attorney
investigators in the recent vote taken by the (Sheriff's Organization)
membership to recall District Attorney Paul Gallegos," the succinct release
reads. "The District Attorney investigators were not in support of the
(organization's) endorsing the recall."

Richard Salzman, founder of the Alliance for Ethical Business and Gallegos'
key organizer, was asked about the endorsement's impact. "I think the recall
organizers need all the help they can get, so this will at least guarantee
them 80 more signatures."

But Salzman doesn't think the organization's portrayal of how crime is
handled here jibes with what's going on in the streets - and he says people
will notice that. "Has there been some radical change in the last five
months that's making people feel less safe walking the streets? I don't see
it."

Lawsuit Amended

Humboldt District Attorney Paul Gallegos' multimillion dollar fraud lawsuit
against Pacific Lumber Company has been expanded and now portrays $300
million of the public Headwaters forest purchase as the prize of deception.

Drawn from an escrow account made up of taxpayers' money, the $300 million
was used to buy 5,600 acres of the Headwaters Forest in 1998. The D.A.'s
amended complaint declares that in exchange for the use of their money,
taxpayers were entitled to a fair and complete environmental review - and
were allegedly cheated by white collar crime in the form of a false report
on the link between landslides in unstable areas and logging.

Another key change: the D.A. is now saying that Pacific Lumber's
falsification of scientific data affected its ability to harvest lumber
overall, not just on unstable slopes. The suit seeks damages for "each and
every tree" Pacific Lumber (PL) has taken down under approvals relevant to
the false data.

That adds up to 40 million board feet of timber a year, the D.A.'s complaint
asserts, and his office seeks injunctive relief (reduction or elimination of
logging), civil penalties of up to $2,500 for every tree harvested and
restitution to taxpayers.

The 'Scheme'

The amended complaint states that PL schemed to "undermine" scientific data
on logging impacts so Maxxam, PL's parent company, could harvest more and
pay off its considerable bond debts.

The focus of the complaint is a PL-sponsored study of landslide conditions
in Jordan Creek. The D.A. is arguing that false data in the report was
knowingly presented by PL, which later "suppressed" corrected data.

The company submitted the corrections to the Fortuna office of the
California Department of Forestry (CDF) and to the Santa Rosa headquarters
of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, but the complaint
alleges that they should have been forwarded to CDF's Sacramento office and
PL knew it.

"PL's intermediaries manipulated the timing and release of information so it
didn't get out and wasn't usable," said Tim Stoen, the D.A.'s lead
prosecutor in the case and its engineer. "CDF was misled - there is evidence
to suggest that the agency was led down the primrose path by PL."

Can Stoen and Gallegos prove that PL's mistakes and later submission of
corrections constitute bad faith and fraud? "We believe they had a
sophisticated concealment by bureaucracy scheme," Stoen answered, and he's
confident that he can prove PL manipulated data to block extension of the
Headwaters deal's environmental review - an extension that could have
allowed scientists and the public to present new information.

Stoen said that PL failed to submit cover letters with the corrections,
explaining their significance and status as fresh data relevant to
environmental review. Because of that, Stoen continued, the corrections
didn't surface and "the clear effect is that every single tree that's been
cut has been unlawfully cut."

The alleged fraud robbed the public of its legally-guaranteed right to
comment on the environmental documents, Stoen said.

D.A. To A.G.: 'Come In'

In a related development, the Sacramento-based California Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has written a letter to state
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, urging him to assist Gallegos.

Lockyer has already decided against that. His office joins PL and state
agencies in defense of the Headwaters Deal in a lawsuit filed by the
Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC). A ruling favorable to
EPIC is expected by the end of June, but that case will decide whether the
CDF followed the processes that governed Headwaters approvals.

The judge in the EPIC case has tentatively ruled that the Headwaters'
Sustained Yield Plan (SYP) in essence doesn't exist because proper processes
weren't followed. "The judge is saying there is no SYP, I'm saying that
whether PL had one or not, the company knew it was fraudulent so there is an
overlap."

And Stoen still wants Lockyer to help with the fraud case. He said then-CDF
director Richard Wilson "didn't give the public its opportunity to comment
because Wilson himself was defrauded - and that's why we want the A.G. to
come into the case."

Also added to the complaint are accounts of PL's past violations and
testimony from past court cases, all indicating that the company manipulated
studies on the presence of endangered species in mid-1990s timber harvest
areas.

Gallegos said those accounts have been added to show that "this is not the
first time PL has done this." He portrayed the amended complaint as being
"more fleshed out and benefiting from "further investigations."

PL: 'Facts Are Wrong'

Jim Branham, PL's director of communications, seemed unfazed by the fattened
complaint. "The D.A. can expand the suit and paint as broad a picture as he
likes, but it's P.R. more than anything else because if their fundamental
facts are wrong, it doesn't matter."

Branham noted that the original complaint's focus was on logging in unstable
areas. But last April, the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and CDF
declared that PL's additional logging has taken place in stable areas only.
The agencies also informed the D.A. (and county supervisors) that the report
which the complaint hinges on had no effect on decision-making.

"The agencies told [Gallegos and Stoen] that the harvesting was not done on
unstable slopes," Branham said. "They couldn't go there, so their response
is to make the suit broader - God only knows what they'll put in their next
complaint."

The incorrect report wasn't even submitted as part of the Headwaters review,
Branham added. He said the Water Board requested the report as part of a
watershed analysis, and it was also submitted to the Fortuna office of the
California Department of Forestry (CDF), which processes timber harvest
plans.

Later, errors were found due to misidentification of aerial photographs, not
fraud, Branham continued. He said the corrected information was submitted as
soon as the errors were discovered and fixed.

Branham also asserted that the false report couldn't have influenced logging
in the areas that it analyzed, as protections in them were made more
stringent, not less, during the Headwaters review process.

The only link between the report and the Headwaters approvals, Branham said,
is that Wilson briefly referred to it in one of numerous responses to public
comment. Branham emphasized that both the DFG and CDF are backing PL's
characterization of the report as irrelevant to later decisions.

"The report was not part of those discussions - and the CDF has told them
that," Branham concluded.

Also last week, both sides in the case presented information on whether they
should be immune from prosecution. Pacific Lumber is seeking sanctions
against Gallegos' office for forwarding a bogus case. Gallegos, meanwhile,
is arguing that PL should not be immune from prosecution (the company's
lawyers argue that information exchanged during environmental review can't
be used as a basis for prosecution).

The judge in the case has heard arguments on those points and will make
rulings on them soon.