Warm Sands Attorney Hopes Burglary Not Connected To Case

One of the defense attorneys in the Warm Sands sex sting case said today he hopes a break-in at his Palm Springs house wasn’t the result of animosity toward his stance on the sting.

“I’m hoping it was just random, but I don’t really know,” Roger Tansey said. “Maybe it’s some crazy person who didn’t like my work on the case.”

Tansey was the most visible of the four defense attorneys who attempted to have two misdemeanor charges dismissed against men arrested during the sting operation. Tansey, who represented six of the 14 defendants, was quoted in the media and appeared on newscasts almost every day of the eight-day hearing that ended Feb. 2.

When the attorney came home from work Friday evening, he was bewildered when he found his dog locked in a bathroom, pepper spray in the air and drawers that had been rummaged through.

He said nothing was stolen.

Tansey said Palm Springs police responded immediately and told him the fact that nothing was missing and that the burglars had locked up his dog — an aggressive, 100-pound German shepherd — “struck them as strange.”

Tansey said he had left his doors unlocked Friday because he hired a plumber to work at his home that morning.

The burglary occurred two days after a judge denied the defense team’s motion to dismiss charges against their clients in a case that stirred up emotions in the community.

The defendants were among 19 men arrested in June 2009 during a Palm Springs police operation that used decoys to arrest men having sex in public. Defense attorneys claimed the department displayed selective enforcement, while officers said they were responding to residents’ complaints.

The fallout of the sting and several inappropriate comments made by police leaders led to the resignation of Palm Springs police Chief David Dominguez and forced changes in the way the department operates.

Tansey said some of his acquaintances suggested the crime was a message being sent to him by the Palm Springs police, but he unequivocally said that was not the case.

“I’m not that important to commit a strike felony over the Warm Sands case,” he said. “That would be absurd of an officer doing that.”

Tansey, actually, said he was appreciative of the police who investigated the robbery. He said they gathered fingerprints and will hopefully identify potential suspects from that evidence.

“One of the sad things about the Warm Sands cases is it got so much publicity — I don’t think those cases were the PSPD’s finest hour — but it overshadowed the daily work fighting crime that they do pretty well,” Tansey said.

The lawyer said one of the responding officers was one of those he and his defense team questioned on the witness stand during the hearing.

“That was more than a little ironic,” he said. “But she couldn’t have been more professional and couldn’t have been more courteous.”

Tansey said the break-in will not affect his desire to defend clients in potentially controversial cases.

“If it’s a one-off (incident), it’s no big deal,” he said. “But if I disappear, then call the FBI.”

Meanwhile, the 14 defendants who saw their motion denied last week are scheduled for a March 14 court appearance. Plea bargains could be reached on that date, with Tansey saying the District Attorney’s Office on Monday offered some of his clients the opportunity to reduce their crimes to misdemeanor disturbing the peace.