Fred Santos couldn't believe his eyes.
Standing in a cramped hallway outside a courtroom in Sacramento, he and his wife, Kathy, had just won the first round in their lawsuit against former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for not telling them that he was shortening the prison sentence of Esteban Nuñez, who was involved in murdering their son Luis three years ago near a fraternity party at San Diego State University.
And there in the hallway, the Santoses saw him — with his hand on his heart amid a rabid swarm of reporters: Esteban Nuñez's father, former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez. To them and many others, he was talking shit.
"When you're dealing with a district attorney," Nuñez told reporters, "like we did in San Diego, who clearly, you know, has aspirations and has always had aspirations for higher office, the approach that they took to my son's case, and in particular to him, irrespective of the facts of the actual case — they picked on my son from day one."
As for Santos' lawsuit, Nuñez called it "not a reason to use taxpayers' money in the courtroom, certainly."
Dressed in a dark blazer and yellow shirt, Santos' face turned red with anger.
"He says my lawsuit is a waste of taxpayer money," Santos tells L.A. Weekly. "Well, I know why he doesn't want this case to be resolved in court. It's because he believes that justice should not be done in the courtroom but should be done by dirty politicians behind closed doors. Because that's what he's already done, and that's how his way of justice is handled."
On Schwarzenegger's last day in the governor's mansion, he signed an order to commute Esteban Nuñez's prison term by more than half, from 16 to seven years. He did not tell the victim's family or prosecutors ahead of time.
Schwarzenegger later told Newsweek that he reduced the prison sentence because he was good friends with Fabian Nuñez. Now Santos and San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who is running for mayor in San Diego, are each suing the state of California and Schwarzenegger for violating Marsy's Law, a constitutional amendment approved in 2008 by voters, which requires victims to be informed of any "postconviction release decision."
They want to overturn the commutation of Esteban Nuñez's prison sentence and have the court impose the original sentence of 16 years.
Fabian Nuñez's comments angered Santos and elicited a speedy response from Dumanis, who said, "The sole purpose of both the criminal prosecution and the civil case filed by our office is to bring justice to the victims of this violent crime, and their families. The DA's office makes prosecutorial decisions based on the evidence and the law, treating defendants the same regardless of who they may be related to."
Nuñez's comments — accusing Dumanis of targeting his son because Nuñez is a politician — are somewhat puzzling.
Why criticize the DA for politicizing the case, especially after Schwarzenegger admitted that he was trying to help Nuñez, his friend and political ally, by shortening Esteban Nuñez's sentence?
"I feel good about the decision," Schwarzenegger told Newsweek. "I happen to know the kid really well. I don't apologize about it. ... There's criticism out there. I think it's just because of our working relationship and all that. It maybe was kind of saying, 'That's why he did it.' Well, hello! I mean, of course you help a friend."
Fabian Nuñez, now a partner at the high-powered political consulting firm of Mercury Public Affairs, has not said why he attacked Dumanis and the validity of Santos' lawsuit that day outside the courtroom. He did not respond to the Weekly's request for comment.
"I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist," Santos says, "so I can't even think why a man who works for a public relations firm would make those moves. It makes no sense, especially since he's the one who politicized this case from the start, getting L.A. Mayor [Antonio] Villaraigosa to write a letter to the court during the criminal proceedings, declaring Fabian's son innocent even before any of the evidence was heard in court. Maybe Fabian Nuñez said it because he wants to keep his name in the public eye. I have no idea."
For the most part, neither politicians nor political foes are willing to blast Nuñez for his comments. Even Sal Russo, the famously outspoken Republican strategist who has no reason to coddle Nuñez, takes a soft line.
"I guess I saw his remarks in more human terms than political terms," Russo says. "I saw it as a painful statement by a father. I would expect him to stick up for his son and see the good in him more so than others."
At best, Santos suggests, Nuñez's hurtful comments may have been aimed at trying to shift the focus and the blame onto Dumanis and away from the issues at the heart of Santos' lawsuit: victims' rights.
On Oct. 4, 2008, Nuñez, 19 at the time, and a pack of friends — Ryan Jett, Rafael Garcia and Leshanon Thomas — descended upon San Diego State University looking to party. Drunk, and with three of them carrying knives, they were upset after being turned away from a fraternity for not being "Greek," and talked about finding someone to fight. At about 2 a.m., they found that someone in the slightly built, unarmed Luis Santos, and what started as an argument ended with a knife being plunged into the left ventricle of Santos' heart.
As a Democrat, I feel really, really embarrassed for what former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez has said regarding this tragedy. Honestly, I expect better from him. I understand the anguish he must feel his own child's legal fate, but if he feels any sense of remorse for what his son did that night in San Diego, I sure don't see it. There is another father affected by this case, too. Nuñez still has his son. Where is Luis Santos?
Nunez should be in prison for all the crimes he committed while in office.Nunez and his son are both low life criminals and should be treated as such.I guess we became a part of Mexico and I didn't even know it.But that explains why our stinking,underhanded, back stabbing, self serving politicians get away with everything.Your no different than the democrats in Washington.Hold your breath, I'm about to flush the toilet.
POLITICS as USUAL!!!!! Dirty, underhanded, crooked, devious, covert, malicious, evil minded,why bother calling Obama the "antichrist" when D.C. and state governments are full of them, they're called politicians.
Esteban Nunez had a privileged childhood, never in need of anything. Except, perhaps, proper parenting. The result, a privileged child now sitting in prison. He exhibited violent behaviour before, as his social media pages had photos of him mutilating animals. A tell-tale sign of something gone terribly wrong. What went wrong? Probably witnessing his father beat on his mother. Fabian has a violent criminal history yet the press keeps this hidden. Esteban is a poster child of domestic abuse and the long term results of witnessing such abuse. Maybe the mayor and all those politicians were right, he is a good kid. He is just paying for his father's sins.
Do you have evidence to back up what you're saying here? Esteban's MySpace page shows pictures of him PRETENDING to abuse an obviously terrified cat and a mouse; they do NOT show him multilating animals. Further, your comments about his father are only mimicking what a handful of wingjobs have been saying in other blogs, also without providing any evidence.
Look, I'm not happy with what transpired with the totally unjustified commutation of Nuñez's sentence, any more than you obviously are. But you don't see me using it as carte blanche to smear the former Assembly speaker and his family with unsobstantiated allegations, simply because I refuse to give him yet another excuse to further claim for himself the mantle of victimhood. So what if you're angry?
There is proof. It is all in the court dockets in San Diego. Fabian was convicted of several felonies, one with intent to cause great bodily injury which involved a sawed off shotgun. He might chalk it up to youthful indiscretion, but it it not too far off from what his son did. His wife also charged him with battery resulting in a spousal abuse claim, this is also in the divorce documents. I'm sure Nunez had the resources to seal these cases. It is ironic that the San Diego DA is the target of his wrath since this DA is privy to these docs. As for Esteban "pretending" the mutilation of animals, any pretense went out the window when he posted them on his page.
All immigrant groups bring with them the positives and negatives of their cultures. Mexican Immigrants negative contribution to American society has been the corrupt - hustler politician.
As opposed to fine, upstanding Anglo politicians throughout our history like Boss Tweed, James G. Blaine, Richard Nixon, Roger Hedgecock and Chuck Quackenbush - right?
Incredible how Fabian Nunez in all his gaul continues to thumb his nose at the system while inflicting more pain on the Santos family. As my grandfather used to say, "We went down to the court house to find justice and that's what we found: Just us." Another piece of Grandpa Dan's wisdom appropos to the Santos' hellish predicament, "There is no justice -- and there never was."
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