L.A. City Attorney and his Double Standard

[hjmick]

Now it would appear as if the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, responsible for prosecuting Paris for her crimes against society, is heading for a bit of trouble himself. Just this week he finally paid for damage to his city-owned SUV caused when it was backed into a pole in 2004. The driver? His wife, driving on, wait for it......wait for it.......a suspended licsense! Did I mention that Rocky and his wife drove around without car insurance for three years? They did't pay their parking tickets either. Sounds like a problem to me.

Ready to steer you right, Mrs. Delgadillo
June 20, 2007

In the interest of public safety, I'd like to volunteer to serve as driver for the wife of L.A. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo.

Let's say Michelle Delgadillo needs to go to the store or pick up the kids.

Let's say she gets hauled into court on a warrant, things don't work out too well, and she needs a ride to the Lynwood hoosegow to bunk with Paris Hilton for a few days.

I'm her guy.

I'm on 24-hour call, and I won't charge a penny. My reward will be the relief I get from knowing she's not behind the wheel.

As my colleague Matt Lait reports in today's paper, Michelle Delgadillo's driving problems go back to at least 1998, when Santa Monica issued a bench warrant for her arrest after she failed to appear in court for driving an unregistered vehicle with no proof of insurance and a suspended license — a scofflaw trifecta!

Sound familiar? That's right. She was also driving on a suspended license when she banged her husband's city-owned GMC Yukon into a pole in 2004.

As for Michelle's husband, it's not as if he's Mr. Responsible himself, which is all the more reason for me to be his wife's chauffeur.

As we established on Monday, Rocky and Michelle in fact tooled around in their Ford Expedition for more than a year while neither had car insurance.

Frightening thought, isn't it?

Two uninsured drivers barreling around Los Angeles in an SUV the size of Dodger Stadium.

Let's see, a Yukon GMC, a Ford Expedition. The Delgadillos are just a Hummer short of being able to blow their own hole through the ozone.

And what a great way to put money away for the college fund. As anyone with car insurance knows, the Delgadillos have saved a small fortune by driving without.

Whoops. Here I am, almost halfway through the column, and I forgot to mention that the Delgadillos ran up $251 in penalties over the last three years for late payment of parking tickets, including one that wasn't paid off until 18 months after it was issued.

It sure had to be embarrassing for the city attorney to admit on Tuesday that his wife Michelle collected those tickets, because that was yet more proof that she was driving without insurance or a license.

He's the city attorney, and yet his family photo could be used in a campaign against scofflaws. Given the way he manages his personal affairs, you have to wonder if he's competent to run a huge city department.

Imagine what must be going through Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's mind during this debacle. He's got to be sitting back and asking himself: "If a blockhead like Rocky could become a lawyer, what kind of dunce flunks the bar exam four times, the way I did?"

Meanwhile, speculation continues as to which agency would investigate the city attorney's office if there was any wrongdoing in the use of a city vehicle by a spouse who ran it into a pole.

The city attorney's office has a conflict because Rocky is the city attorney. The district attorney has a conflict because Rocky might run for district attorney. The state attorney general has a conflict because Rocky ran against Jerry Brown.

That leaves me, so I sent another round of questions to Rocky's office Tuesday, including:

more...

Did I mention the arrest warrant for Mrs. Delgadillo? It seems as if Michelle failed to appear in court in 1998 on charges of driving without insurance, with a suspended license and in an unregistered car.

Arrest Warrant Was Issued For City Attorney Delgadillo's Wife
POSTED: 7:14 am PDT June 20, 2007

LOS ANGELES -- The wife of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is named in an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to appear in court in 1998 on charges of driving without insurance, with a suspended license and in an unregistered car, it was reported Wednesday.

In addition, documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times show that in the last three years the Delgadillos were chronically late in paying fines for at least five parking tickets, the newspaper reported Wednesday.

One violation for parking in a red zone in December 2006 was not paid until The Times inquired about the tickets last month, by which time the $70 infraction had become a $174 fine with penalties, according to the newspaper.

A spokesman for Delgadillo told The Times the city attorney's wife was responsible for all the parking tickets and delinquent payments.

Michelle Delgadillo's scofflaw status was yet another embarrassing development for the city's top prosecutor, who disclosed Monday he had periodically allowed her to drive his city-owned vehicle on a suspended license for personal errands.

She had an accident in 2004 while driving her husband's city-assigned GMC Yukon, which was repaired at taxpayer expense.

After ducking the issue for days, Delgadillo announced Monday he was reimbursing the city for the $1,222 repair and said he did not realize he himself had been an uninsured motorist for about a year and his wife, for more than two years.

In the latest disclosure, Michelle Delgadillo said in a statement released to The Times Tuesday that she is "very embarrassed to find myself in this situation" and is working to resolve the arrest-warrant issue "as quickly as possible."

"I will do whatever the court instructs me to do. I apologize for any embarrassment this has caused my husband and family," she said. "It is completely my mistake." Delgadillo added in another statement quoted by The Times that he had not known of the outstanding warrant.

"As soon as I learned about this today, I immediately urged my wife to remedy the situation, and she is working to resolve this. My wife is embarrassed about this, and I am embarrassed as well."

According to documents obtained by The Times, Michelle Delgadillo was cited by a California Highway Patrol officer on Aug. 1, 1998, in Santa Monica for allegedly driving with an expired Montana driver's license.

The citation -- issued two weeks before she married Delgadillo and written under her maiden name, Namen -- said the tan BMW 325 she was driving had expired tags and she had no proof of insurance.

The Santa Monica city attorney's office filed a three-count criminal case. When she did not appear in court a month later for her arraignment, a judge issued a $2,000 bench warrant, according to records cited by The Times.

The warrant remains active, according to officials with the Santa Monica city attorney's office and court records reviewed by The Times.

Arrest Warrant Was Issued For City Attorney Delgadillo's Wife

Unless Michelle Delgadillo gets to share a cell with Paris, I'd say there's a slight double standard going on here.

 

[uscitizen]

Do you really think there are not double standards in our legal system ?
Amazing.
I have long known you get just as much "justice" as you can afford.

 

[hjmick]

Do you really think there are not double standards in our legal system ?
Amazing.
I have long known you get just as much "justice" as you can afford.

I was just being coy.

I think it's political. Hilton is a Republican while Delgadillo is a Democrat.