A new entry in my Skeleton’s Closet is a Second Amended Complaint (SAC) filed in the case of Nazario vs Yates et al in Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC 476321: http://www.janbtucker.com/SkeletonCloset.html
This new filing of around 90 pages including exhibits adds amongst other things a RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization Act) cause of action under 18 USC 1964. According to the SAC, the Plaintiff, former KPCC reporter Patricia Nazario who had been physically attacked by LAPD Officer Jesse Reyes on May 1, 2007 at the well-publicized immigration rights rally at MacArthur Park, had no idea that Private Investigator Paul Ingels had purportedly worked on her case for her then-Attorney, Gregory Yates. That is, until she belatedly received an itemization of the disposition of her judgment funds which showed Ingels being paid $750.50.
Ingels, who operates out of the Inland Empire, would be a curious choice to work on a case at MacArthur Park in central Los Angeles, especially since there were no charges shown for Greg Yates’ longtime investigator Ken Shigut, who did in fact go to MacArthur Park with Yates and the Plaintiff in preparation for trial. By many standards, it would also seem completely incongruous for Yates to have hired Ingels. Yates is considered to be quite liberal in his politics…he once told his ex-wife that he’d read about me in my friend Mike Novick’s book White Lies, White Power….not the kind of reading one would expect of anybody who isn’t relatively to the left of center.
Ingels on the other hand would make Yates a very strange bed-fellow politically. Ingels is:
1. A red-baiter who denounced my affiliations with every group from the National Organization for Women and the NAACP to Local 69 of the Newspaper Guild (AFL-CIO) as being “far, far left” (I agree that I’m far, far left and in fact I told him I wasn’t a “liberal” because I’m a “radical,” a concept he couldn’t quite comprehend) but most of the organizations I belong to are perfectly mainstream
2. Militantly anti-abortion, claiming that my “NOW gang” refers to third-trimester abortions as “Casual Fridays,” terminology that I’ve frankly never heard of so I don’t even know what he’s talking about
3. Venomously anti-LGBTI, having denounced same-sex marriage and making this ultra-weird but obviously homophobic statement in an email to me (and lots of other private investigators):
Mr. Tucker is so far to left in his political views that even Barrack Obama is to the right. It is a great sense of embarrassment that CALI has chosen to place him on their CALI’s Legislative Committee. What on God’s green earth are they thinking of?
CALI just doesn’t get it, you don’t have to Save the Gay Whales for Christ [emphasis added] to make sure you are politically correct. I suggest that it is better to be honest, than to be political correct. Something that Tucker and CALI just don’t understand.
If Patricia Nazario had known Ingel’s background and viewpoints, she would never have approved hiring him to work on her case. Furthermore, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to use a right wing extremist on a case involving immigration rights as his personal abhorrence to people on the left and their viewpoints could have compromised his ability to objectively interview potential witnesses. Then of course, why would anybody want to jack up their investigative bill by having somebody charge mileage and driving time from the Inland Empire to work on a case in Central Los Angeles?
When Nazario wrote Ingels asking what he did on the case, he initially denied knowing who she was or that he had done any investigation on her case. Less than a month later he wrote back now claiming he had worked on the case, but subsequently failed to respond to her requests for his investigative work product (none exists in the attorney case file, nor does any invoice from him, nor any work assignment by Attorney Yates). The SAC alleges this to be a violation of Section 624, Title 16, Division 7, Article 4 of the California Code of Regulations which requires a private investigator to render a report to a client if they have been paid for their work.
With all that said and done, I was still struggling to figure out just what Attorney Yates and Investigator Ingels might have in common for Yates to hire him all the way from the Inland Empire to work on the underlying case (the SAC is primarily for legal malpractice). Finally it dawned on me: they’re both homophobic! According to paragraph 44 of the SAC:
in 1991, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC 044652, Rubin vs Yates, the Plaintiff sued Yates for assault and battery and related injuries, contending that in essence, following a traffic accident that Defendant Yates exercised little or no impulse control and screamed at Rubin using a homophobic epithet (“fucking faggot”) and physically hit Rubin about his head while Rubin was seated inside his car.
If Patricia Nazario had known that in advance, she wouldn’t have hired Yates either.
The SAC can be accessed at: http://www.janbtucker.com/SkeletonCloset.html
For background: http://janbtucker.com/blog/2012/06/09/two-new-skeletons-in-the-closet/
