gosh we are back in session after the lunch recess and we will enter the deliberation phase of this herein. i want to remind the public or one the public, this will be no surprise to you that given the divergent views that we heard during public comment, i can almost assure you that you will hear something that you don't like coming out of them out as of the commissioners. i ask, that you respect the process. do not get in the clapping,

during, or sounds from the audience. we need to focus and try to reach a resolution of this matter. i am instructing the sheriff. excuse me. law-enforcement in the room, if you see anyone make an outburst, please remove them from the room. i would prefer if you had somebody else in here, too. we will have to have been no tolerance policy on this. i apologize in advance but this is what we really have to have. my proposal for how to go about deliberating on these issues is to start with v factual issues.

and move to the legal issues. and ultimately discuss our views on the ultimate issue of whether the facts constitute official misconduct. that is not acceptable to my fellow commissioners? i will introduce each of what i consider to be the salient facts. i will express a quick summary of my view and invite discussion on whether we think of this particular fact is established. there are a number of facts that were presented in front of us over the course of the last several months. but i think we should help in on the one that could possibly sustain a charge of official misconduct. i think those facts are as follows.

first, whether the physical abuse of a share of --share of -- sherriff mirkarimi occured. if he abused the office life- threatening to take away custody of his child. i think we should address the dissuasion of witnesses. fourth, i think we should address the issue. the failure to support and encourage victims to come forward. first, the violence against miss

lopez. i think it is without dispute that it occurred. the conduct was clearly wrong full and clearly unlawful. i found it disturbing that the share of -- and the sheriff testified in a way to minimize the conduct. is there a discussion as to whether or not the mayor was able to establish that the sheriff will fully abused his wife on december 31, 2011? >> the evidence shows that a more serious incident occurred than just what has been

characterized as an army brat. i think there was a tremendous amount of evidence that shows the severity of the seriousness of the incident that took place. we have the video that was more or less contemporaneous accounts of what happened. it was corroborated by what miss lopez said. what the own witness and the campaign manager described as domestic violence. i think the evidence shows more serious incidents than what the chef and a modest at the

proceedings. >> i think this is in addition to what commissioner lou was saying. thew3 video was also the more credible source as to whether there were previous attacks -- acts of physical abuse to use your phrase ha. i thought that they were the contemporaneousl and and clearer emotion as to whether physical act had taken and the testimony that we got in this proceeding. >> any other views from the commissioners? >> let me add my views as a layperson. hull and all the legal issues that had been discussed, it is

very simple. number one, the video. that we have seen, miss lopez taped with the assistance of her friend and neighbor. there is no way to look at that video. and not believe that something serious occurred. and an indictment of her husband. she is an actress. was that back? i have no way of knowing. i believe what i saw.

number two, in the end, ross mirkarimi made a plea bargain. so he pleaded guilty to perhaps something lesser. i don't know if it would be a lesser or greater in terms of false imprisonment. there is a lot of discussion and perhaps by pleading to this he avoided a much more serious issue. we did not hear what those discussions were between all the attorneys in coming up with that plea deal. those things are an indictment of what occurred. none of us were there and we don't know what took place. lpsomething serious did take ple in the share of ultimately pleaded guilty -- the share oerf pleaded guilty. >> next, we discuss abuse of

office to take away custody of his child from the slope was spirited -- miss lopez. there was evidence about use of the term "powerful" in terms of what the sheriff said to miss lopez. my preliminary view is that there is not enough to sustain a charge of officialñilp miscondut based on this allegation. i do not think the mayor has proven beyond -- that there was a threat to use the power of his office to take away his child. the allegations are too vague to be proven in this case. i welcome the view of my fellow commissioners. >> i would agree with you. i found the testimony

unconvincing. i was not convinced by the explanation that manpower of the custody laws. even if i read that i am a powerful man or that i have power, it was not connected enough to anything else to make it around for a conduct violation. there may be a number of ways to interpret it. even if i leave aside the unconvincing power of the laws, connections, a financial power. the articulateness, english lemons speaker, whatever it was. i think we would need more of the nexus to think that it was the abuse of office by threatening to use that specific

kind of power. >> the next fact i think we should consider is the dissuasion of witnesses. there were two witnesses the mayor identified as being dissuaded. the first was miss lopez. let's take them one witness at a time. miss madison testifies in her declaration that miss lopez told her the sheriff instructed her not to go to the police or tell anyone about the abuse.

the share of chose not to cross- examine ms. madison on this point. i think we need to take it as credible. but subject to the fact that i think it is here say, i did not see any non-hearsay evidence from the mayor's side to show that the sheriff made attempts to dissuade vessel does from going to the police. -- miss lopez from going to the police. the telephone messages, text messages and e-mail.

he instructed her to try to dissuade miss lopez from lptalkg to the police or reporting this incident. that is a plausible reason of the fact. this is a preponderant of the evidence that those actions occurred. i did not find her testimony with respect to the conversations with miss hanes to be a particularly credible at times. the mayor was not able to sustain this piece of evidence. i welcome the views of my fellow

commissioners. >> i take it that you are talking about it as a separate charge of misconduct. because as we get further in discussion, i think there is some relevance to the conclusions i reached about the pattern of phone conversations between miss hanes, lopez, and the sheriff. and when i pressed her on saying whether discussions about how you strategize, they just want to support ms. lopez. in the real world, the sheriff was facing the fact that this was going to go public. how do you spin it? that is what i think those

conversations were probably about. how can we deflect what is going to be obviously our political enemies using it to their advantage? i don't think there is evidence to support a separate charge of misconduct. >> any other views? i felt that that was the part of the testimony that was not credible. this notion that they get these conversations and the share of -- sheriff was clearly involved. i did not find that incredible. >> in addition to which she testified that she could not

remember the substance of many of those phone conversations. there were 20, 30 phone calls? to say you don't remember what you were talking about is not credible. she may believe she does not remember it but i was not convinced at all. >> i would agree with your conclusion. there is a very plausible or possible chain that would explain better than miss lopez calling someone she did not know very well and hremembering her having something different than the testimony but i don't think we have enough for a separate charge. >> i next think we should

discuss the witness dissuasion charges with respect missw3 madison. here i don't think it's close. agianain, it's plausible the sheriff instructed miss hanes to tell miss madison not to cooperate with the police. i do not think we are close to that kind of evidence we will need to find that sheriff sought to dissuade miss madison from cooperating with the police or reporting the incident. i welcome the view from my fellow commissioners. >> i think there was an unbelievable amount of text and phoen clal -- phone calls.

we counted between 20 and 40. over 30 calls a text with miss lopez threw up the day -- throughout the day. in the end, it looks like the campaign manager was at the center of all of the activity that day. i did not change that there was enough evidence to take that and infer via preponderant of the evidence that the sheriff was orchestrating it. t i thin there was an interesting coincidence -- i think there was some interest in coincidences -- interesting coincidences. she would call miss madison and say, forget everything i told you.

i do not think there is enough for the sheriff to orchestrate it. >> i would concur. i want to leave aside the atmosphere that was created later. the respect or disrespect for the participation of witnesses. there was the conduct and the tone in which a teacher of was engaged. on this point, i agree with you. >> the next issue that i think we should address are the guns. you probably recall that when this first came up in the declaration, i suggested we

strike it but it seemed very tangential to what was going on in front of us. frankly, the sheriff didn't help himself and testified and consistently with what he told the inspector. the inspector was not cross-exam and a meeting that we need to take his admissible -- but he was not cross-examined, meaning that we need to take it as credible. they established that he told the inspector that he sold his gun in 1996 to a fellow cadet. i don't remember the exact individual. the question that is whether that was simply a mistake in a statement or if it was, in fact, a willful attempt to deceive and the inspector.

-- deceive the inspector. this was a closer call in my mind that i thought it would be when the evidence came in. i do think that in light of the fact that all the guns were collected at the same time, that i do not think there is a preponderant of the evidence that the sheriff was willfully attempting toñi deceive the inspector when he suggested that he sold the gun in 1996. both sides of the argument require some -- trying to connect the fact with argument. as with some of these other facts, i do not believe that it was sustained by a preponderant

of the evidence. i welcome the views of my fellow commissioners. >> i would be interested in subdividing these pieces related to guns, but the matter of thinking it as a separate question about the matter of providing the guns to returning the guns to the sheriff's office, not to the police department and the related -- >> i was thinking of them as separate issues. >> ok. >> i wish i had been told if there was another got as to which that description applied. it would have been a mistake about someone that held several licenses, or whether it was -- which would tell me more about whether it was an intentional

effort to mislead. but we did not have that. the third gun in this setting. it is hard to connect the dots. >> i think if the gun was not collected at the time of the other guns, i would feel that it was willful. th eye coul see the basis of the motive for the misstatement -- i could see the basis of the motive for the misstatement it is likel. it is likely with respect to turning over the guns to the police department, again, i -- frankly, i think it was childish. this idea that you are going to