To the Editor:
Tom Hine’s attacks on my professional integrity in his column published today (Aug. 24) are outrageous.
His contentions are false, and a retraction is necessary.
Hine, in his column, declared, and I quote:
“He could have pointed out that every news story in all the local media came from one disgruntled former DA office employee that Dave had personally fired. Dave might add that the vendetta began even earlier, during the prosecution of an Ukiah police officer accused of crimes.
The ex-DA public relations man wrote numerous accounts of the soiled cop story, all suggesting his sentencing was a conspiracy involving Eyster and Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman.”
The truth, which eludes Hine in his quest to defame my 50 years as a responsible journalist, is starkly different.
DA Eyster did not ‘personally fire’ me.
In fact, I was the one who terminated a contract with Eyster as a part-time media consultant. I was never an ’employee’ of the District Attorney’s Office, nor did I collect any benefits from the County of Mendocino beyond the agreed-upon consulting fees. A copy of the contract agreed upon by DA Eyster and me is a public record and available for review. So is my letter ending the arrangement.
I never wrote about a ‘conspiracy’ surrounding the questionable plea bargain DA Eyster approved for disgraced Ukiah Police Officer Kevin Murray that was presented to Judge Ann Moorman by the prosecution and defense attorneys. The conspiracy is in the mind of Hine, as he continues his slide into distortions, lies, and manipulation of facts.
I accurately reported that DA Eyster agreed to drop serious sex charges against the disgraced Murray in return for no contest pleas to misdemeanor charges that allowed him to avoid recommended prison terms. Eyster also dropped a drug-related charge after his own chief investigator, during an earlier search, discovered a packet of methamphetamine in Murray’s police locker. The Sonoma County Probation Office, which reviewed and recommended a prison term for Murray, later complained that Eyster’s office failed to provide supporting evidence of the police sergeant’s actions in other cases, including the beating of a Ukiah man. The city of Ukiah has paid $3 million in total to settle subsequent civil cases surrounding Murray’s actions as a local police officer.
Tom Hine’s reckless disregard for the truth is appalling. His scurrilous accusations about my professional integrity are unacceptable, false, and in need of retraction. Unlike Tom Hine, I reviewed records and attended criminal proceedings surrounding Murray and the Cubbison cases. I heard facts presented during the sworn testimony of witnesses in courtrooms. I never saw Hine at any of the proceedings.
-Mike Geniella, Ukiah
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