News of the Week
August 13-20, 2015
county
LOOKING FOR MEANING: As the warring tribes in the immigration debate, including Steven Redgate, who shouted, “Protect our women,” at protesters across the street, seize upon the murder of Marilyn Pharis (pictured below), the Rape Crisis Center issued a statement: “Rape is rape,” adding, “Immigration had nothing to do with this crime.”
All Over but the shouting Feds and Law Enforcement Square Off over Santa Maria Woman’s Murder by Undocumented Immigrant here’s scant agreement about anything surrounding the murder of Marilyn Pharis, a 64-yearold Vandenberg worker and Santa Maria resident, except for the savage way she was done in. About 10 a.m., July 24, two men broke into Pharis’s Dejoy Street home, raped and strangled her, and then beat her with a hammer. When they were done, both of Pharis’s eye sockets had been shattered and her neck broken. She would not die, however, for another eight days. One of the two men since arrested and charged with rape, torture, and murder—Victor Martinez—is an undocumented Mexican immigrant. Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin stated Martinez had been arrested in the past 15 months no fewer than six times. Martinez walked out of County Jail most recently just four days before allegedly killing Pharis, a crime for which he has pleaded not guilty. Given this incendiary trajectory, Martinez has emerged as Santa Barbara County’s poster child for the intensely anti-immigrant jeremiads called forth by presidential candidate Donald Trump. Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly has seized upon Martinez as Exhibit A for everything that’s wrong with President Barack Obama’s immigration policy. This week, no less a personage than crime show host Nancy Grace exhorted viewers to call Santa Barbara District Attorney Joyce Dud8
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ley to express their outrage and displeasure. Grace posted the DA’s phone number on the screen. As the politics surrounding America’s immigration debate grow ever more radioactive, so, too, does the intensity of the argument now escalating over who is most to blame for “letting” a certified repeat offender like cou rte sy
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by N i c k W e l s h
Martinez out of jail. Sheriff Bill Brown and Santa Maria Police Chief Martin wasted little time in blaming Proposition 47, passed last November by state voters, which prevents prosecutors from charging low-level drug possession crimes as anything but misdemeanors. The bulk of Martinez’s transgressions involved possession of methamphet-
augusT 20, 2015
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amine. If not for Prop. 47, Brown insists, Martinez could have been charged with a felony and held in custody for at least 15 days. Retired judge George Eskin, a vocal supporter of Prop. 47, took heated exception, noting that even before Prop. 47, it was customary for Santa Maria prosecutors to file meth possession merely as a misdemeanor. More pointedly, Sheriff Brown also questioned why federal authorities with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have steadfastly refused to seek the court warrants needed by area law-enforcement agencies to detain defendants like Martinez past their locally mandated time behind bars. Without such warrants, Brown stated, a raft of federal court rulings has made it painfully clear local authorities could be successfully sued for holding undocumented immigrants at ICE’s behest. Under existing law, Brown noted, ICE could still seek advance notice of immigrant prisoners’ release dates. In the case of Martinez, Brown pointed out, no such request had been made. ICE spokesperson Virginia Tice countered that her agency had, in fact, sought advance notice the previous time Martinez had been arrested and jailed —in 2014—for attempted sexual assault, but that no reply was forthcoming. ICE acknowledged no such request was made this July, explaining, “He had no prior deportations or significant criminal convictions.” In addition, ICE officials have argued that no federal cont’d page 13
news briefs
August 13 - 20, 2015
law & disorder
sbso
dan i el dr ei fuss / sa nta m a r i a ti mes
by Kelsey Brugger @kelseybrugger, @kelseybrugger, Keith hamm amm,, lÉna garcia @lenamgarcia and nic icK K welsh elsh,, with Independent staff
Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of a suspicious person photographing young girls at Goleta Beach on 8/17. They located Stephen Thomsen (pictured), 28, an elementary school teacher with Goleta Union School District, and seized his camera on which were inappropriate photographs of several girls at the beach. Thomsen was arrested on a misdemeanor child annoying charge and is in County Jail with bail set at $2,500. Authorities seek public assistance identifying one additional victim, believed to be an 8- to 9-year-old girl. Please contact the Detective Bureau at 681-4150. Jury selection is underway in the upcoming trial of two alleged sexual assailants charged with conspiring to rape a 64-yearold homeless woman at East Beach last July. Prosecutors say Juan Herrera-Romero, 31, and his cousin Gabino Romero, 27, allegedly used a knife to intimidate the woman and her 69-year-old male companion while they physically restrained them and took turns raping the woman. After the crime, the woman reported her assault to the staff of the DoubleTree Resort and then underwent a forensic medical exam. K.C. Williamson and Steven Powell are representing the defendants. The trial date for the lawsuit against Pacifica Graduate Institute, alleging the school misled students about its accreditation status, has been set for 4/1/16. In four related cases first filed in 2013, 61 plaintiffs are suing the school for tuition costs and loss of future earnings. Pacifica is not American Psychological Association (APA) accredited. That status is not required for students to become licensed in California, but plantiff attorney Eric Woosley contends major employers such as Veterans Affairs and Kaiser only hires students who graduated from APA schools. Pacifica attorney Mark Intrieri contended the case has no merit. “Numerous claims have been dismissed, and several plaintiffs have dropped out of the case,” Intrieri said.
county Hashing out what sort of ordinance ought to address the countywide explosion of short-term homestays and full-blown vaca-