This morning Sanjana Alexander was scheduled to receive punishment from Judge David Wesley as part of the contempt of court citations he'd previously issued to her and Alvin Dymally. She had to wait, however, while Wesley conducted a pretrial hearing involving the two alleged animal right militants accused of harassing UCLA medical researchers. Linda Faith Greene, 62, arrived from her train wearing a long skirt that didn't quite conceal the monitoring bracelet that seemed to have scraped raw the skin above her ankle; Kevin Oliff, 22, was brought in from county jail in handcuffs.
Ninety minutes later Wesley turned his attention to Alexander and her attorney, Dana Cole. Alexander is the sister of fashion designer Anand Jon, who was convicted last November of 16 counts of sexual assault against young and under-aged women; Alvin Dymally is the rogue juror who, against Wesley's standing juror instructions, contacted Alexander during the trial with vague messages of support for her brother. Instead of reporting the outreach to Wesley or her brother's five attorneys, Alexander, who was a potential witness during the trial, reciprocated the contact. After the verdict she revealed her exchange of notes and phone calls with Dymally, setting off eight months of new-trial motions that only ended with Wesley denying them and sentencing Jon to 59 years to life in prison. Jon now awaits extradition to New York on similar charges.
On Monday Wesley gave Dymally a $1,000 fine and 120 hours of community
service in lieu of five days in jail. Even though Dymally had initiated
the contact that triggered the ensuing legal donnybrook, there was a chance that
Wesley would hand Alexander a higher sentence, if he determined she
deserved a double contempt citation for both her contact with Dymally
and for giving false testimony. In the end Wesley was persuaded to
confine his punishment to a single contempt sentence. Noting that her
transgressions were both civil and criminal in nature, the judge gave
Alexander the same punishment as Dymally. The only hitch is that Wesley
wanted Alexander to perform the 120 hours on a Caltrans crew, while
Cole claimed a medical condition made that impossible.
Wesley
agreed to work with Cole and Alexander to find “an acceptable
alternative” and scheduled them to return to his court next Tuesday
with a doctor's letter confirming Alexander's inability to work with
Caltrans. After the hearing, Alexander embraced her mother and the two
women wept.
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