August 10, 2003

Supervising Assistant Attorney General

Office of the Attorney General

455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 1100

San Francisco, CA  94102

Attention: Michael O’Reilley

Reference: People vs Don Iversen, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office 02-2158

Dear Mr O’Reilley;

Last year my attorney, Andrew Mansfield, contacted your office.  The subject of this contact was a possible conflict of interest with the Mendocino County District Attorney regarding the case referenced above.  Additionally, Deputy District Attorney, Myron Sawicki, wrote you regarding a possible conflict of interest in the District Attorney’s office.  It is Myron Sawicki’s letter of July 19, 2002, and the deliberate lies contained therein, which prompts me to write you now.  I will detail these lies and the proof of my statements below, but first I want to inform you that my family and I have been victimized by the Mendocino County District Attorney through the violation of our civil rights under the color of law, under 42 USC, 1983, 1985 and 1986.  We have filed suit in federal court and I believe it is the duty of the Attorney General’s office to investigate these claims.

 
At the heart of this issue is the brutal murder of my dog, on my property and the illegal discharge of a gun on my property by my next-door neighbor, Donald Iversen.  In Mr Sawicki’s letter he lays forth multiple false claims, designed to prevent your office from looking into the matter further.  Mr Sawicki claims to have reviewed the sheriff’s reports but makes statements that could not possibly have been pulled from those pages.  Mr Sawicki claims that my dog went on to the Iversen property and killed the Iversen dog.  Nowhere do the reports say this and the Iversen dog, in fact, died on State Park property, in violation of the county leash laws. This same dog and another Iversen dog always roamed free and have even been impounded for killing deer as much as five miles from their home.   Mr Sawicki’s claim that my dog killed their dog is also false as evidenced by the sheriff’s report.  My dog was examined by a deputy and cleared.  Mr Sawicki claims that Don Iversen was coming over to my home to talk to me about the death of his dog and my dog attacked him.  Nowhere in the sheriff’s reports is any such statement made.  What is in the sheriff’s report is that Don Iversen and his accomplice, John Iversen, were stopped minutes after fleeing the scene, by CHP Officer Berg and at first lied, denying any knowledge of the shooting.  This in itself is a misdemeanor.  Only after being tricked did Iversen admit to killing my dog.

One of the conflicts that we wrote to your office about is the illegal involvement of Deputy District Attorney, Mark Kalina.  Mark Kalina was also my neighbor and is now a tenant of the Iversens.  Mr Sawicki claims that my dog chased Mr Kalina’s sons into a tree.  This is a lie.  Mr Kalina’s sons were already in a tree on the western edge of my property and my dog saw them and started barking at them.  There are witnesses to this and I have email between Mrs Kalina and myself, (see attachments), to support this statement. 

 
Mr Sawicki claims that I planted stakes on my property to intimidate Mr Kalina who might be a possible witness on behalf of the dog killers.  Again, this is false.  I had pointed out to Mr Kalina the true boundaries of our property on many occasions, yet he continued to trespass.  I sent Mr Kalina advance notice that I was marking the boundary and I did so, with standard boundary markers and fluorescent surveyor’s tape.  You too, had your homestead been violated in as violent a fashion as mine, would seek to define boundaries to help protect your family.

 
Finally, it is the professional opinion of Lieutenant Robert Arbayo,, formerly of Mendocino County Animal Care and Control, that Mr Kalina was involved in the planning and shooting of my dog and that the District Attorney’s office was complicit in this scheme in refusing to prosecute this blatant act of felony animal cruelty.

 
There are numerous other, deliberate falsehoods in Mr Sawicki’s letter.  In your response to Mr Sawicki, declining to take over prosecution, your office claims to have read the sheriff’s reports, but how can this be true?  A comparison of the letter with the reports clearly demonstrates untruths.  The lies are numerous and blatant.  Surely, the fact that the Mendocino County District Attorney’s office is willing to lie to your office, deliberately mislead your office, supports our claims that there is a conflict and that it is necessary for your office to take this matter over.  Additionally, District Attorney Vroman has refused to enforce a restraining order against the Iversens by not prosecuting four separate violations, violations with witnesses, photographs, etc.  Yet he files charges against me for criminal contempt of court in an issue where he cannot possibly prove intent or win a conviction.  The hostility of the District Attorney’s office in this case even extends to ignoring subpoenas and verbally abusing process servers.  Clearly, something is wrong with the justice system in Mendocino County. 

I am a law abiding single parent who depends on the law enforcement authorities to protect my family and me from this type of violent behavior.   Not only were we not protected, the evidence shows that the ‘authorities’ were involved in the crime.   Who do I turn to?  My son, a Marine, spent seven months in Iraq, risking his life and losing his sargeant, in service to his government, while the local government conspires to violate the civil rights of his family.  Why is this being allowed to happen?

 
You have a duty and care to investigate these claims and reconsider prosecuting the Iversens and all their accomplices.  I have attached a copy of the federal suit we have filed for your review and the emails between Barbara Kalina and myself, supporting my statements above.  Please direct your prompt response to my attorney listed below

Sincerely,

Mary Geddry

Victim of Violent Crime

C/O Andrew Mansfield, Esq

PO Box 2402

Mendocino, CA  95460

707-937-0820

 cc:           Andrew Mansfield

 encs.       United States District Court - Case No.: C 03 2553 EDL
                Email correspondence between Barbara Kalina and Mary Geddry