Preliminary hearing for former Building and Planning Department employee Patrick McTigue finally started this morning. Time estimate is a full day. It is taking longer than anticipated. The trial continues tomorrow morning.
McTigue is charged with six counts of bribery by officer/ public employee and three counts of grand theft and one count of prevent/dissuade witness/victim from reporting.
McTigue's attorney is Mr. Neal Sanders. Deputy District Attorney A. J. Kamada is the prosecutor on the case.
Humboldt County Building and Planning Director John Ford was the first witness. In his testimony he covered how he heard about the alleged bribes McTigue was accepting, including a call from one of the Supervisors and how HCSO started the investigation.
"Mr. McTigue was out on sick leave and not performing on any official capacity for the County," Mr. Ford testified. "He had been out inspecting sites and accepting money."
Richard Amaral and Lacey Amaral were the next two witnesses. "He made me believe he needed the money but if I needed it, he'd give it back," said Richard Amaral. McTigue reached an agreement with the Amarals and "paid some money" but there were bounced checks. The financial agreement and other documents were shown in court today.
Lacey Amaral testified that once McTigue received $50,000 from them, he stopped coming around. There was an incident in the Peppers parking lot in Fortuna where Amaral said McTigue would not come in to sign a contract and things got heated.
As she and others testified, McTigue shook his head.
After brief testimony by Lloyd Julien, Redwood Coast Water Company's Jeremy Kurtz testified.
Kurtz gave McTigue a pallet of CBD water valued at 1,100 to what he thought was a donation for research and development at St. Jude's. Kurtz found out later McTigue was misrepresenting himself as the owner of Redwood Coast Water and offering two people jobs.
Kurtz reiterated key points all victims made. They trusted McTigue because he was a County official; McTigue offered his assistance, talked about different partnerships in the cannabis industry, would disappear after he received money or product and ultimately fear of retaliation from McTigue, both personal and for their businesses.
Kurtz knew McTigue's brothers and generally from being in Fortuna. He, just like others trusted McTigue because he was a County official. Kurtz described how that trust developed into fear. McTigue had visited Kurtz's personal property where he lives.
As of 3:10 p.m, James Alves, Jessie Genaro and DA investigator Alan Aubuchon still had not testified. The trial did not conclude today and resumes on July 12.
Court minutes:
I broke this story. I covered it live as it was unfolding from different perspectives with a lot of information. Other media did not cover it until much later. Previous posts are linked below. You can access all posts via google or the search feature on this blog.
Recent posts:
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/07/patrick-mctigue-preliminary-hearing.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/07/with-full-day-estimate-will-patrick.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/06/defense-and-prosecution-stipulate-to.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/04/preliminary-hearing-for-patrick-mctigue.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/03/four-more-bribery-charges-added-in.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/03/patrick-mctigues-case-gets-included-in.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/03/people-to-amend-complaint-for-patrick.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/02/yet-another-delay-and-continuance-in.html?m=1
(contains links to other posts)
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/01/patrick-mctigues-case-looks-like-it-is.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2019/01/defense-has-subpoenaed-records-from-epd.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2018/05/hcso-investigation-of-patrick-mctigue.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2018/05/patrick-mctigue-arrested-and-booked-for.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2018/03/just-how-many-irons-in-fire-does.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2018/03/so-patrick-tigue-what-is-deal-with.html?m=1
https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2018/03/i-asked-building-and-planning.html?m=1
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.