NCFM NOTE: Notice that much if not all of Jerry Coxes problems are facilitated by one false accuser, Ashley Harris. Which is not to say there are not others – other false accusers to include Mariposa County employees and officials, and other bad actors. Jerry was falsely accused of 16 sex related crimes, dozens of property code violations, and lying about all of it. He lost everything. The liars and false accusers not so much. Yet.
Arguments made at request of judge; case still set in September
When it comes to legalese, the lawyers in the Jerry Cox v. Mariposa County federal case know their business.
The case is being heard in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Although the saga of the Cox case was delayed once again recently and the case will not go to trial until September at the earliest, there was still a request by a judge for the parties involved to submit briefs about the case involving a specific issue that was raised. That’s where the legalese comes into play.
Judge Lee H. Rosenthal agreed recently to delay the case until September, and in doing so, she also requested the parties file those briefs based on the case of Heck v. Humphrey, which is a 1994 matter.
Petitioner Roy Heck was convicted in Indiana state court of voluntary manslaughter for the killing of Rickie Heck, his wife, and was serving a 15-year sentence in an Indiana prison. While the appeal from his conviction was pending, he filed this suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, seeking damages but not injunctive relief or release from custody-on the claim that respondent.
The argument was presented by the lawyers representing Ashley Harris, a key player in the Cox case. Harris met Cox on the dating website farmersonly.com and the two first me in Fresno, where both have said they had consensual sex.
Later, Harris traveled to Cox’s 437-acre ranch as the two were getting to know each other better. But Harris then claimed that Cox held her hostage in a cabin, raped her and more. She reported it to the California Highway Patrol, who turned the case over to the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office because the alleged incident took place at the ranch, which is located on CYA Road in Mt. Bullion north of the airport.
That is the reason sheriff’s office deputies are included in the federal lawsuit. Those are former deputy William Atkinson and deputy Wesley Smith, who still works at the sheriff’s office.
Mariposa County is included in the lawsuit in connection with both the rape case as well as a receivership case in which the Mariposa County Superior Court would eventually rule the ranch could be placed in receivership. It was and eventually the property was sold.
Cox is claiming the county colluded in both the rape and receivership cases, something a former federal judge said he agreed with in a statement several years ago.
What they are arguing
The documents submitted in the request from the judge came from both the Cox side as well as Harris and the county.
In the case of the latter, it was the attorneys for Harris who submitted the briefings and included the county.
Both of the submissions were 12 pages, the maximum requested by the judge.
Both of the submissions include a lot of that legalese targeted at the case cited by the judge which was the focus of the briefings.
In the document submitted by Harris and the county, the arguments seem to boil down to the statute of limitations, that Cox has failed to provide “any evidence showing that Ms. Harris acted jointly with Mariposa County officials,” that the state court acted appropriately in approving the receivership, a “lack of constitutional violation arising from court-authorized enforcement actions and probable cause “supporting the county’s enforcement proceedings.”
It also argues “qualified immunity,” an issue the county has argued when it comes to the two deputies involved in the case.
One of the major questions was whether the Heck case would apply to a civil proceeding, in this case the receivership case. The county and Harris argue the Ninth Circuit Court has ruled Heck “to apply beyond criminal proceedings …”
They also claim that Cox “remains unhappy with the result of the receivership action and now asks this court to find the receivership unconstitutional.” They claim the Heck case “bars such claims.”
Cox’s attorneys, though, say what the county and Harris are claiming aren’t relative to this matter.
They said Heck “only applies to civil proceedings that arise out of a criminal conviction and sentence,” which in this case didn’t happen.
“Plaintiff’s claims challenge the constitutionality of the process, searches and seizures leading to the civil receivership and the conduct of county officials, including their admitted false and exaggerated claims of numerous alleged code violations, pernicious and pervasive perjurious declarations submitted by MC in support of its code enforcement proceedings, and the county’s negligent and unconstitutional supervisor over the receiver.”
It also says the federal court “already ruled that if the jury finds the plaintiff’s allegations are true that there is no bar from any statutes of limitations.”
Cox’s attorneys also emphasized there was no criminal conviction in this case.
In fact, although Cox was charged with 16 felony charges in the alleged rape case, those charges were all dropped by former Mariposa County District Attorney Tom Cooke, who died last year but did give a deposition in the case.
That is a major point in Cox’s argument, where his attorney notes, “There has been no criminal conviction in the case. Quite the opposite, the criminal proceeding in the case against Mr. Cox was dismissed by the trial court on the motion of the district attorney after learning before this case was filed that defendant Harris had lied and that her accusations against Mr. Cox are false. Yet, despite the county’s overreach they brought and maintained a health and safety code case against plaintiff, within two weeks of the criminal case being dismissed, that resulted in the complete confiscation and liquidation of his property and livelihood.”
Cox is seeking damages for unconstitutional searches and seizures; retaliatory and selective enforcement; forced homelessness; loss of use and enjoyment; theft of plaintiff’s property; conversion of plaintiff’s property; lost profits; loss of business opportunities; reputational harm; emotional distress; and out-of-pocket costs incurred due to defendants’ misconduct.
Cox’s lawyer, Fred Geonetta, wrote a six-point conclusion in his filing. A key issue seems to be the second point, which reads, “Plaintiffs do not seek to invalidate any state-court judgment.”
That would seem to indicate Cox is not seeking to get any property in the settlement. That may have been possible, though it would be complicated since the Bison Creek Ranch has now been sold two times since it was seized from Cox.
Whether Cox could receive different land if he wins the case has not been discussed in any court documents though that now seems unlikely given the point made by Cox’s attorney.
As for damages, the lawyer has never given any specifics, only that they will seek what they feel is appropriate. Some have speculated it will be in the millions of dollars but that will not be known until the case either goes to trial or there is a settlement agreement before September.
The case
Besides all of the legalese and other language associated with the case, the matter of Cox v. Mariposa County is complicated and dates back more than a decade.
Although the rape case and receivership case are not quite that old, the county claims they were dealing with Cox well before that timeline because of code issues at the property.
In addition, there was the issue of transient occupancy taxes (TOT), which the county said Cox was not paying even though he was allowing paying guests at the ranch.
Cox countered by saying he did not owe those taxes as he was utilizing “agritourism” at the ranch, meaning he did not provide meals and other services which require TOT to be collected.
But much of that became moot once Cox was charged with 16 felony counts related to the accusations by Harris.
Cox spent nearly a month in jail trying to raise the bail money and said he had to sell his buffalo herd in order to obtain those funds. The ranch was named after the buffalo herd.
Since that time, Cox has said he has struggled financially.
Background
The federal case involving Cox actually stems from those two Mariposa County Superior Court cases that date back nearly a decade.
It was in 2016 when Cox was arrested by the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office on sex-related felony charges.
The charges were based on interviews with Harris, the woman Cox met on the dating site farmersonly.com. Harris and Cox first met in Fresno and he admits to having consensual sex with the woman.
From there, Harris later came to Cox’s ranch where she stayed for several weeks. It was there she claimed Cox locked her in a room and repeatedly forced her to have sex.
When Harris left the ranch with another woman, they first went to a local bar and drank several beers before going to the local office of the California Highway Patrol where Harris reported she had been raped.
Because it was alleged to happen on Cox’s ranch, the CHP immediately contacted the sheriff’s office, which began an investigation.
That investigation eventually led to the arrest of Cox and the information was given to former Mariposa County District Attorney Thomas Cooke, who died last year.
Not only did Cooke take the case, he added felony counts and, in total, Cox faced 16 such counts and was facing possible life in prison. He spent several weeks in the local jail before being able to bond out.
For more than a year, Cooke pursued the case against Cox. He also allegedly asked prosecutors in surrounding counties to take the case as his own personnel would not. None of them did.
Also during this time, phone records indicated that Harris had sent and received 166 text messages during the period of time she claimed to be held hostage at Cox’s ranch. In her interviews with law enforcement, she claimed she could not get a cell phone signal during that time period. She also claimed a landline phone in the room would not work though that would also prove to be false based on testimony from others who were also staying at the ranch.
Some of those text messages she sent were to Cox, one including a seductive photo of Harris suggesting she was waiting for him to return to the ranch.
Eventually, in a low-key hearing, Cooke dropped all 16 felony counts against Cox. That hearing in Mariposa County Superior Court lasted less than five minutes and former Judge Dana Walton agreed to drop the charges. That was on Aug. 14, 2017.
Cooke would only say he didn’t feel he could prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
It was learned the prior June, Harris testified in another case she had never been a victim of sexual assault or abuse. At a later point when Cooke was running for reelection, he did state on video at Happy Burger Diner that was the reason he dropped the charges against Cox.
On top of all of this, during this same period of time, the county was pursuing a code violation case against Cox.
It was March 13, 2017, when the county brought a motion to the Mariposa County Superior Court to place the property in receivership based on 101 code violations at the ranch.
That county has claimed since the outset the rape case and the code violation case were unrelated.
But former federal Judge Anthony Ishii, who first handled the federal case but has since retired, wrote a lengthy statement and said, in his opinion, there was little doubt the county was co-mingling cases.
During a hearing last year, Judge Rosenthal made a point to bring up Ishii’s opinion when the county continued to claim there was no connection between the cases. It is highly likely that will be a central focus for Cox’s attorney when the case does go to trial.
Court changes
The case has also changed in recent months, with the departure of one judge as well as an order delaying the case until September.
The magistrate judge in the case has retired. In federal court, the magistrate judge, in this case Barbara McAuliffe, recently retired and now the court is waiting for another magistrate judge to be appointed.
The magistrate judge handles a lot of the preliminary work and motions in federal court while the senior judge, Rosenthal, will handle the trial.
For now, the court has assigned Judge Sheila K. Oberto of Fresno as the “temporarily reassigned” magistrate “until a new magistrate judge takes over,” according to a document filed Jan. 8.
According to Glenda Hassan, case manager to Judge Rosenthal, it will be Rosenthal who handles the trail.
Rosenthal, who handled a lengthy hearing last September involving all of the parties, is a senior judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston. It remains unclear, but probably likely, if Rosenthal will be traveling to Fresno to conduct the trial or if it will be held in Texas.
A docket call for the case is scheduled via Zoom for Tuesday, Sept. 1 with the trial scheduled to begin one week later on Sept. 8.
