September 12, 2024
Jerry Cox was falsely accused of several sexual assault-related charges by Ashley Harris and arrested on Nov. 13, 2015.
This arrest triggered a decade long series of events, beginning with Mr. Cox having to post a $50,000 nonrefundable cash bail bond. Subsequently, through suspicious, if not trumped-up, county code violations, Mr. Cox lost his 437-acre Bison Creek Ranch and all its improvements.
This led to the devastation of his eco-tourism business, the loss of a substantial bison herd and the destruction of his lifelong ambition, hard work and dreams.
Key players in this real-life trauma include false accuser Ashley Harris, the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff’s deputies William Atkinson and Wesley Smith, retired Judge Dana Walton, former Mariposa County District Attorney Thomas Cooke, the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors and Mark Adams from the California Receivership Group (CRG).
All these individuals are suspected or known to have participated in Mr. Cox’s destruction, legally or otherwise. None have been indicted, arrested or sent to prison for dereliction of duty, malfeasance, criminal involvement or anything else.
The citizens of Mariposa County will be paying the price for this horrific debacle for years to come. Legal fees and administrative costs must now exceed well over a million dollars.
Settlement costs will be substantial. Otherwise, without a settlement, the continuing legal battles will escalate along with whatever jaw dropping award an angered jury gives Mr. Cox in his federal case. And he will win.
Consider if the jury award exceeds the county’s insurance. Might there then be a multi-million dollar special assessment or some other scheme for property owners to pay the difference?
I offer these thoughts to the good people of Mariposa County, who well know the evil shenanigans leading to the demise of Mr. Cox.
Please pressure your board of supervisors to settle this case so all involved can move on. It is the least you can do after the blameworthy parties above have ruined Mr. Cox’s life and stained your beautiful county.
Ten years of persecution is long enough. Let him go. You could be next …
Harry Crouch is the President/Chairman of the Board
National Coalition For Men
NCFM President Harry Crouch Mariposa Gazette Guest Opinion Ten years is long enough to wait in the Jerry Cox matter
A decade ago many may have thought the system is fair and it works. More recently, the media began giving some coverage to false accusations of rape and DV. Many high profile cases have shown what police statistics also show: About half of all accusations of rape are false. It is the secret judges, police, prosecutors know–ask one you know–and yet, they won’t cooperate with exoneration, with restoration lawsuits, or with prosecution for perjury. The excuse is always the same: We don’t want to make real victims afraid to come forward. So you sacrifice the 50% who are falsely accused? Mr. Cox’s case seems to be another example of this judicial and prosecutorial double-standard. From the facts presented in this article, it sounds like Mariposa Co. needs to come clean, pay Mr. Cox, and if possible, prosecute any wrong doers.
I am a retired long time California State Peace Officer who owns a large horse ranch in Catheys Valley, CA. and have a neighbor, David Sullivan, at 5347 Hornitos Road, Catheys Valley, Ca. who is not only guilty of several serious Sexual Offender Offenses C.P.C. 314 Indecent Exposure to a neighborhood full of children, C.P.C. 647(a) Lewd and Lascivious Behavior in our neighborhood (photographed/witnessed) but also very physically violent offenses as well including C.P.C. 166 Contempt Of Court. He violently threatened a Mariposa County Superior Court Judge, Anita Bryant, on 12/18/23 with violence well evidenced by causing a very violent physical outburst C.P.C. 415 (like he has done to my wife and I numerous times) and yelling at said Superior Court Judge calling her a “Fuc. Bitch” witnessed by a courtroom full of attorneys, a court clerk, MCSO bailiff, my attorney at the time and a host of others some of whom thought he might physically charge the judge like he has done to my wife and I numerous times along our common property border fence line. He also is guilty of C.P.C. 118 Perjury on the involved Restraining Order that Judge Bryant denied by his falsely stating a host of highly sexually deviant passages only a few days after the Indecent Exposure Offense obviously created by a mentally/sexually disturbed mind. He has also committed numerous criminal acts of C.P.C. 422 Threats Of Great Bodily Injury, C.P.C. 148.5 Filing an obviously fraudulent Police Report evidenced by his contradictory statements on other official Mariposa County government reports.
His property is full of Mariposa County Ordinance Violations ranging from a completely illegal totally unpermitted hog house full of unpermitted and dangerous structural materials (building collapse?) as well as highly charged electrical wiring being constantly driven over by their tractors connected to a high voltage PG&E transformer that is still being used despite our complaints to the relevant Mariposa County Agencies and could start a wildfire any day. There are hundreds of feet of bare highly charged electrical direct buried wiring conduit without any EMT protective piping and no licensed building contractors EVER used on any of the work and the hog house was spewing, intentionally, large amounts of untreated hog sewage onto our property/Wildlife Refuge. Of course, in the Cox case these Mariposa County “Offcials” could not wait to steal his Bison Creek Ranch with over a hundred supposed County Ordinance Violations most of which were falsely created. Prior to 2016 when then CA. Governor Jerry Brown changed the law on state law enforcement various agencies city, county, state, federal, etc. property seizures all these law enforcement agencies had to do was “criminally charge a property owner” with a crime loosely related to said properties falsely or otherwise in order to “steal” their properties like in the Cox case even without the required Due Process Hearings.
There are many other illegal unpermitted structures on David Sullivan’s property just check our report to them on the Mariposa County Public Portal property that the involved Mariposa County Agencies also refuse to address unlike the Cox case. The involved Mariposa County lead person, Carolyn Coder is a long time friend of Wendy Sullivan a long time Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office Dispatcher and has committed lie after lie after lie to cover for her. Absolutely no Mariposa County Ordinance violations have ever been charged against David Sullivan and the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office refuses to do any real investigative follow up as I did routinely as a long time patrol officer many years of which were spent on patrol of very violent areas like the African American Public Housing Projects in Hunters Point San Francisco (Bloods/Cripps) and near the Hispanic Barrios in Fresno (Nortenos/Surenos) on the numerous criminal incidents committed by David Sullivan.
We cannot get the Mariposa County District Attorney’s Office, MCDA Walter Wall, to file ANY criminal charges against him (for our neighborhood families’ safety and our family as well) despite the overwhelming evidence of his guilt. His criminal guilt is extremely well evidenced by a host of witnesses (just like MCDA Wall wouldn’t file the obvious criminal charges against the deputies involved for obstruction of justice/criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Jerry Cox vs. Mariposa County “Officials” case soon to be FINALLY heard in Federal Civil Court), as well as photographs of his extreme illegal behavior, official Mariposa County government reports clearly evidencing his criminal guilt on many of the criminal offense against me and others, audiotapes, etc., etc., etc. Mariposa County District Attorney Wall refused to file the photographed Indecent Exposure offense or Lewd and Lascivious Behavior on 11/15/23 near our common ranch border nor the obvious filing of a false police report or the C.P.C. 415 Public Disturbance or C.P.C. 422 Threats of Great Bodily Harm well evidenced ONLY BECAUSE HIS WIFE IS A MARIPOSA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE DISPATCHER! Sound familiar!
The Obstruction Of Justice C.P.C. 132 and Criminal Conspiracy To Obstruct Justice in the Cox case where the involved MCSO deputies DESTROYED completely EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE like 56 text totally conciliatory messages between Cox and the “alleged” victim Ashley Harris (most likely a Confidential Informant for MCSO) to set up Jerry Cox and steal his Bison Creek Ranch (property seizures being a MAJOR portion of the Department’s operating budget at that time) over the time period in question, numerous witness statements on his behalf who were there at his Bison Creek Ranch, the destruction of biological evidence (did they even do a rape kit as I certainly did on similar cases during my patrolman career) all of which would have immediately cleared him of the 16 felony counts illegally charged against him by MCSO/MCDA him including rape, sodomy, false imprisonment, etc.. Harris later admitted two years later on Workers Compensation forms that she had never been the victim of sexual assault or rape but in the interim the Mariposa County “Officials” had stolen his Bison Creek Ranch without ANY legal Due Process hearings as required by law. Without the misstep by Harris in the Workers Compensation Case admitting intentionally or not that she had falsely accused Cox of the listed criminal charges, Jerry Cox would likely have been found guilty in a rigged county criminal justice system and imprisoned the rest of his life. The California Receivership Group LLC that had taken over the Cox Bison Creek Ranch for the Mariposa County involved agencies Re: owner Marc Adams who had done virtually nothing to address the supposed Mariposa County Ordinance Violations were trying to get $500,000 in court out of Jerry Cox for their actions on his former property that Cox had reportedly remedied for some $7900 dollars. Cox Attorney Marc Andelucci who took a former legal deposition from Adams in 2019 regarding Cox’s Bison Creek Ranch that his company was involved in was murdered the next year supposedly by Roy Den Hollander who the FBI stated was on a long “hit” list that Hollander had when he reportedly committed suicide in New Jersey after killing a Federal Court Judge Esther Salas’s son trying to get her for dragging her heels for many years on an important legal case involving potential federal military draft laws. The legal deposition that Attorney Andelucci took from Marc Adams as far as I know has never been furnished to Jerry Cox’s attorneys from the San Bernadino Sheriff’s Office highly prejudicing his case of their company’s illegal actions. What a surprise. The FBI was getting 20% of all property seizures under the arrangement in place for law enforcement property seizures (the FBI had much greater enforcement “power” and exclusions from the laws involved) and one would imagine that the San Bernadino Sheriff’s Office also had interests in what was in the legal deposition since the California Receivership Group had confiscated and sold at public auction probably thousands of seized properties and where did all of this money go in the food chain?. Neither law enforcement agency had any vested interest in the information getting out, Boss Hog would be proud, for obvious reasons.
Law enforcement corruption is rampant inside of the Mariposa County Criminal Justice system here historically re: MCSO Sheriff Boss Hog and his narcotics trafficking ring in the 1970s and early 1980s using the Mariposa Airport to traffic in the cocaine then selling it to Yosemite National Park visitors and others in state and out of state completely exposed by a new MCSO Sheriff Ken Mathys and his Narcotics LEO Task Force. A MCSO Deputy Ron Van Meter (aka a real Serpico of the time) trying to expose said R.I.C.O. racketeering enterprise by the MCSO was MURDERED by those involved who called it a boating accident drowning but whose body (skeleton) was discovered at Lake McClure ten years later wrapped in a fishing net and weighted down by a fire extinguisher and other heavy objects). Also, MCSO Sergeant Roderick Sinclair, reportedly high on tranquilizers (Seconal the Oxycontin of the time)/Percodan) who had received 1250 doses over a two year period from a local Dr. Arthur Dahlem, reportedly the father of current Mariposa County Counsel Steven Dahlem, caused a head on collision on March 3, 1983 with a Secret Service vehicle leading Queen Elizabeth’s motorcade for her visit to Yosemite N.P. resulting in the deaths of three Secret Service Agents by driving recklessly at an estimated speed of 72 mph in a 35 mph zone on a sharp turn on highway 132. He had already struck one Secret Service Vehicle but kept on going until striking the second and fatally occupied Secret Service vehicle. CHP wanted to file criminal charges against Sgt. Sinclair but “Boss Hog” refused to let them and even promoted him! The widows of the involved fatally wounded Secret Service Agents won a 5 million dollar settlement against the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office for their illegal actions and the deaths caused by them of their courageous dedicated husbands. A MCSO female deputy also was raped by another male MCSO deputy and upon reporting the incident to “Boss Hog” Paige she was told if she continued on with the complaint that she would be involuntarily admitted as a W. and I. 5150 patient.
We desperately need an outside federal criminal justice investigation of the Mariposa County Criminal Justice System here where my confidential sources have told me the criminal corruption NOW is worse than ever inside of these agencies. Mariposa County District Attorney Walter Wall NEEDS to criminally indict David Sullivan for the sexual related serious offense he has committed in our family neighborhood and for the physically violent acts against us and Mariposa County Superior Court Judge Anita Bryant as well as the perjury on the fraudulent Civil Rights restraining Court Order a public document that has seriously defamed my reputation like it has to Jerry Cox and other previously listed charges.
Our life here on our horse ranch in Catheys Valley has become a living hell due to the “diplomatic immunity” given to David Sullivan by the Mariposa County law enforcement agencies here. We cannot even allow our young teenage grandkids to visit us on our ranch anymore to ride our horses due to the ongoing criminally uncharged deranged behavior by David Sullivan.
It is our hope that the Jerry Cox vs. Mariposa County “Officials” case will be heard in a full public review format and not “settled” behind closed doors as the involved Mariposa County “Officials” DEFINITELY want. The Mariposa County Insurance coverage will almost assuredly not cover most of the LIKELY Cox case monetary settlement judgment due to the blatant Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office actions, et al criminal behavior and these agencies will likely try to settle the case out of court and pass it on to Mariposa County residents via special assessments, tax increases, etc. Talking about adding insult to injury these agencies have a well detailed past history of criminal corruption, re: Boss Hog Sheriff Paige and the history of Obstruction Of Justice/Conspiracy To Obstruct Justice by MCDA WALL who would not criminally charge the “Cox Case” sheriff’s deputies and in our case against David Sullivan and his relationship to wife Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office Dispatcher Wendy Sullivan. David Sullivan and 24 year old son Codey Sullivan have told my wife and I repeatedly that the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office (and by inference the Mariposa County District Attorney’s Office) would do absolutely nothing about their criminal behavior and that they can do anything that they want to do legal or otherwise because their wife/mother being a Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office employee, dispatcher. This lack of prosecution for TOTALLY well evidenced crimes by these agencies has been backed up by long time county resident retired police officer friends of ours, long time resident livestock ranch owners and county employee informants of ours inside the Mariposa County Law Enforcement Agencies.
Being a law enforcement officer is an often very dangerous and stressful career and from my vast experience the vast amount of them are honest, courageous, professional dedicated to their communities and their sworn oaths but the corrupt ones need to be weeded out or else the rot of corruption will just keep spreading throughout the involved Criminal Justice System like rot usually does.
The Obstruction Of Justice/Criminal Obstruction Of Justice here in the Mariposa County Criminal Justice System needs to be put to an end after many decades. Our law abiding county residents and others certainly deserve it.
Our relatives are urging us to move to Montana and to get away from the law enforcement agency criminal corruption here as we originally intended to do. Having spent a very long career in law enforcement and coming from a highly decorated combat military/law enforcement family on both sides that have served our country with courage and valor and paying the ultimate sacrifice I am very disappointed in living here in Mariposa County due to all of the County Agency government corruption. Otherwise it is a beautiful county scenery wise and the county residents by and large are friendly really decent folks. I think I will stay off Lake McClure in our families boats for awhile fishing nets are supposed to be for fish not people.
We are posting this in significant part because of the courage it took for you to submit it. You and your wife are apparently one of those families who “may be next.” Unfortunately, provincialism often brings maladministration, graft, payoffs, fraud, outright theft, coercion, nepotism, and even murder. It seems Mariposa fits the definition. Montana is beautiful too. Suffering the winds and winters may be worth it.
Please note that the views expressed are solely those of Mr. Scott, regardless of whether we (NCFM) agrees or not in whole or any part.
Great OpEd Mr. Crouch. While Jerry Cox is most certainly a victim, having been falsely accused by a semi-professional but not highly intelligent Grifter who makes a living engaged in various scams, false rape claims, false worker’s comp claims, slip and falls, you name it, she’s probably exploited it, but the taxpayers of Mariposa County have and will continue to shell out their tax dollars for lawyer and expert fees which has probably gone way over $2 million dollars so far. The public officials and others who are responsible for this farce, must be held penniless and a public corruption investigation must be sought.
Wonderful editorial, Mr. Crouch.
Bravo! Great letter Harry!