District Attorney Candidates Square Off At Town Hall

Superior Court Judge Paul Zellerbach is challenging incumbent Rod Pacheco for Riverside County District Attorney.

The candidates have made few campaign promises.

Instead, they took the gloves off in a town hall meeting of republican women in Banning.

Zellerbach criticized Pacheco, specifically about a grand jury report accusing the district attorney of using fear and intimidation to get his way and putting prosecutors under heavy supervision.

Pacheco said there’s no evidence of that.

“The claims that he makes only come from a few disgruntled employees, obviously not from the employee groups in the Riverside County DA’s office,” said Pacheco.

The grand jury report also recommended removing the DA’s executive division.

Zellerbach said, if elected, he would do that and cut the DA’s budget by $10 million.

Pacheco blasted his opponent for his record as a judge.

“He’s been a terrible judge. It’s not just his judgment. It’s also his lack of ethics. And the lack of ethics he displayed today in front of this crowd,” said Pacheco.

Pacheco said Zellerbach has been soft on sexual predators for years.

He also said the State Judicial Performance Committee came close to removing Zellerbach from the bench.

In 2004, the judge took the afternoon off to go to a baseball game.

Zellerbach said it was a miscommunication and apologized.

Pacheco said he isn’t buying it.

“He was incredibly rude to the prosecutor, the lawyers. He wouldn’t take the verdict. He jeopardized the verdict by doing that,” said Pacheco.

“People are more concerned about the real issues relating to budgetary concerns and issues concerning the DA’s office, conviction rates. Me going to a baseball game, taking the afternoon off six years ago, I don’t think is a big issue with the voting public in Riverside County,” said Zellerbach.

Zellerbach also slammed the DA for his record.

“You can’t just talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk. His conviction rate at trial in the DA’s office is about 41, 42 percent. It was over 70 percent when I was in the DA’s office. So, I think these prosecutors need to go back to focusing on convicting the crooks in court, which is not happening,” said Zellerbach.

The judge also said Pacheco refuses to make plea deals and ignores civil cases.

“Civil litigants have the constitutional right to access justice just as the criminal ones do. And Mr. Pacheco doesn’t care about that. I think as DA, you have to be worried about the welfare of the community and keeping the community safe at the same time,” said Zellerbach.