By Emerson Drake
7/28/11
Questions regarding Sheriff Adam Christianson's "special treatment" of Joe Gibbs started to surface last week but the Sheriff has been difficult to pin down. Yes he did allow Joe Gibbs to receive special dispensation, a man guilty of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit and run, by receiving home detention instead of jail time. This occurred after receiving a series of calls from people who have been described to us as political donors to the Sheriff's campaign. This was counter to the sheriff's policy against home detention for those who kill.
Tuesday morning at the Board of Supervisors meeting we attempted to allow the sheriff to supply us with the names of the "businessmen and Rotary members" who actively sought Gibb's release. The sheriff refused to speak with us at the BoS meeting apparently preferring to get the maximum spin possible from the Bee. Besides, his donors might not be so quick to open their wallets to keep Christianson's job as sheriff the next time if he co-operated with an investigation he couldn't control.
We've written before about the special treatment "connected people" receive in Stanislaus Count. Child molester and former police officer Chip Huskey was not required to sign up as a sex offender. Former Detective Kari Abbey had been taken under his wing to promote as an example of just how good his decision making is. She has been receiving special favors from the District Attorney's office by being the only one of over two hundred people who, when charged with murder with a weapon, didn't receive a weapons enhancement charge.
The sheriff who likes to use the phrase, "I know things you don't know" claims to have been in the dark about this.
Another name for it "politicians" like to use is plausible deniability, but in this scenario it reeks to high heaven of cronyism and favoritism.
