Former grand juror faces prosecution

By TERRY VAU DELL - Staff Writer
Posted: 02/19/2009 12:03:12 AM PST

OROVILLE -- A former Butte County grand juror faces criminal charges over the alleged disclosure of information she received while serving on the public watchdog group.

Although state prosecutors refused to comment on the case Tuesday, the misdemeanor charge is believed to have stemmed from a 2007 grand jury probe of an excessive force complaint involving two Paradise police officers.

Information from the secret Grand Jury proceedings were subsequently used in court by the attorney for a resisting arrest suspect to unseal one of the arresting officer's personnel files.

Georgie Szendrey maintained at the time she felt she did nothing wrong because her service on the 2006-07 county Grand Jury had expired before she turned over information on her investigation to an attorney.

The unauthorized release of confidential grand jury information is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail.

Because Szendrey's husband, Ed Szendrey, is a former chief investigator in the Butte County District Attorney's Office, the case was referred to the California Attorney General for investigation.

Calling his wife "a courageous woman who loves truth and justice," the now-retired investigator stated in an e-mail he stands by her actions.

"She has always demonstrated that she is a friend of law enforcement and the community. We believe in the end she will be exonerated," he wrote.

Georgie Szendrey's attorney, Michael Harvey of Oroville, said Monday that since
he has not yet seen any investigative reports, he is unaware what the specific allegations are.

A spokesperson for the attorney general Tuesday declined to comment on the case, other than to confirm that a misdemeanor complaint was filed in Butte County Superior Court charging the Chico woman with "improperly disclosing Grand Jury information."

The charges are believed to relate to an excessive force complaint lodged with the county Grand Jury in 2007 by the family of Justin Baltierra, who was reportedly videotaped by a neighbor being tackled to the pavement and handcuffed by Paradise police officers Robert Pickering and Timothy Cooper, after being arrested for drunken driving in December 2006.

In her written findings as a member of the Grand Jury group assigned to oversee law enforcement matters, Szendrey concluded the officers had neither provided clear commands nor informed the intoxicated driver he was under arrest, "used vulgar language in their attempts to get the subject to comply, resulting in an unnecessary take down" and also prevented his girlfriend from calling 9-1-1 to summon other officers to the scene.

When she was unable to get the necessary votes among her fellow grand jurors to include the incident in its end-of the-year report, after her term expired in June 2007, Szendrey turned over her written findings, along with a transcript of the arrest tape, to Baltierra's lawyer, Denny Forland.

After Baltierra entered into a plea bargain resolving his case, Forland said he furnished a copy of the Grand Jury information to Chico attorney Kevin Sears, who used it in support of a court motion to examine Pickering's personnel file on behalf of another ridge man, Justin Schumacher, who at the time was accused of resisting and threatening the ridge officer following a public intoxication arrest.

The town's attorney, Dwight Moore, had argued there were insufficient grounds to allow the defense lawyer to examine the officer's file, and openly questioned how the unpublished Grand Jury documents had been leaked.

Schumacher was subsequently acquitted of the felony charges at trial.

A separate jury last month acquitted a third man, Harold Funk, 51, also of Paradise, of similar charges involving the same two Paradise police officers.

Funk claimed on the witness stand the officers dislocated one of his elbows after pursuing him into a public lavatory while investigating an after-hours vandalism complaint outside a Paradise market.

Following a separate investigation into excessive force complaints lodged by the families of Schumacher, Baltierra and Funk, the FBI in Sacramento last year reportedly cleared the two ridge police officers of any criminal wrongdoing.

The California Penal Code 924.1 states that except when ordered to do so in court, every grand juror who "willfully discloses any evidence adduced before the grand jury, or anything ... said, or in what manner grand jurors voted, is guilty of a misdemeanor."

In a letter referring the matter to the state Attorney General's Office, District Attorney Mike Ramsey said he did so to "preserve the integrity of the grand jury system and it's secrecy provisions."

According to the Butte County Superior Court Web site, a notice to appear for arraignment Friday on the misdemeanor charge was sent to Szendrey's lawyer.

Harvey said Monday he is "awaiting discovery in the case to see what exactly they are basing their allegations on."

http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_11737901