High Ranking City Officials Ordered To Court In Warm Sands Sex Sting

Fourteen Palm Springs police officers, including Chief David Dominguez have been served with subpoenas, surrounding the Warm Sands Sex Sting conducted in the summer of 2009, according to Roger Tansey, a deputy public defender for Riverside County, representing six of the 19 men arrested in the case.

Palm Springs City Manager David Ready and Council Member Rick Hutcheson have also been served.

“What we have to show is a discriminatory intent,” which can be done with several different points, said Tansey.

First, longtime Palm Springs police officers have testified in court that the police department has not conducted a sex sting targeting heterosexual couples in at least 20 years.

Second, “The police at various times have said that the stings were motivated by complaints from the public,” said Tansey.

Tansey said he doesn’t believe the city ever received complaints from the public regarding public gay sex in the Warm Sands area, and that is why Ready and Hutcheson have also been ordered to court.

“I actually spoke to Mr. Ready at one point and he had told me he hadn’t received any complaints,” said Tansey. “Mr. Hutcheson has been reported to having said he hadn’t received any, but of course, none of that matters unless it’s under oath.”

Third, according to a citizen’s complaint filed by several unnamed Palm Springs police officers, an officer used a gay-slur when referring to one of the defendants on one night of the sting.

Chief Dominguez was alleged to have been in that same patrol unit that night and used a gay-slur himself.

“We don’t know who those officers were, and the chief by the way, I should say, has denied this,” said Tansey. “So, since we don’t know which officers were in the car, we have to subpoeana all of them, and find out, ‘Were you in the car? Did you hear this?”

Comments from the city were referred to City Attorney Doug Holland but he did not return News Channel 3’s phone calls or messages for this report.

By serving the subpoenas, all parties are now required to appear in court and may be called to testify.

Arguments to have the case dismissed are scheduled for Jan. 20, 2011.