Web Exclusive: Riverside County D.A. Files Lawsuit Against Board Of Supervisors
A new twist in the legal battle between the DA’s Office and the county.
Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco filed a lawsuit against the county to fill 12 jobs.
The county froze those jobs because claiming the DA’s Office was million of dollars over budget.
The county also claimed Pacheco cooked the books to turn a budget deficit into a budget surplus.
Pacheco says that’s not true and claims the county and the new DA, Paul Zellerbach, coerced a financial officer into signing a document which allegedly showed the DA’s Office was over budget.
Last week, the county announced Pacheco could fill 9 positions and asked the DA to drop his lawsuit.
A judge will have to sort out this whole mess when the case goes back to court on Thursday.
UPDATE: District Attorney-Elect Paul Zellerbach took issue with the lawsuit filed by Pacheco on Tuesday.
?First of all this is Mr. Pacheco saying this, not Mr. Woolery,? Zellerbach told News Channel 3. ?Mr. Pacheco saying so doesn?t make it so. I have encouraged Mr. Woolery to be honest and truthful about the budget.?
Zellerbach said Pacheco’s case is moot, since he changed and altered his request of filling frozen positions to filling open positions in which Mr. Pacheco was aware he had.
Zellerbach will be sworn into office at 7:30 a.m. on Monday in Riverside. If the lawsuit was still pending, he said he would dismiss it at that time.
He said the first thing that he plans to do is replace at will employees with his new team.
“It is like when a President takes office and brings in his own key staff members,” he said. “The number varies, but it appears that there are approximately 15 at will positions and I will not fill all of those immediately.?
