Eliana Lopez (center), the wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, will hold a press conference tomorrow, her attorney, Paula Canny (left), has confirmed. File photo by Luke Thomas.
By Luke Thomas
March 19, 2012, 11:16 pm
Eliana Lopez, the wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, will hold a press conference Tuesday at 12:00 pm, Fog City Journal can report.
“Eliana Lopez will have a press conference at noon tomorrow outside Bill Graham, Civic Center,” Lopez attorney Paula Canny confirmed via email.
Lopez is expected to tell the untold story of what happened on December 31 that led to an altercation between Lopez and her husband, an argument that resulted in Ms. Lopez sustaining a bruise on her right arm. Court documents paint a picture of a couple experiencing marriage difficulties with concerns over a possible divorce and child custody battle.
Lopez has maintained since charges were first filed against her husband in January, that Mirkarimi, who pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor false imprisonment last week and was formally sentenced today, is innocent; that a political element seized on an opportunity to destroy her husband and her family.
Mayor Ed Lee, who has yet to decide if he will move to suspend the Sheriff, met with Mirkarimi this afternoon at City Hall. It us understood, though not confirmed, that Lee asked Mirkarimi to consider resignation.
Lee is expected to make a public announcement about the case tomorrow, his spokesperson said.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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March 22, 2012 at 6:42 pm
Kamala Harris is NOT a progressive!
March 22, 2012 at 4:58 pm
“Eliana and their son have suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of Gascon…” If this was not so serious a subject I would be laughing out loud about such ridiculous comments.
Lopez lost what little respect I had for her when for illegal and ulterior motive she chose to attack an innocent witness and exhibit dishonest behavior culminating in her consciously and with deliberation to submit a perjured declaration to the Court, where she said that Ivory Madison told her that she was an attorney, and therefore their meeting would be confidential.
Before her testimony I was willing to cut Lopez a little slack on that bogus “Madison went to law school so I thought she was an attorney; in my country law school graduates are automatically lawyers.”
I cut Lopez a little slack because I assumed the attorney/client privilege argument was a fiction thought up by over-zealous lawyers, Lopez only saying and doing whatever the misguided lawyers suggested.
But when I read on SFGate that Lopez put into her sworn declaration (a declaration is the legal equivalent of testifying in court) that Madison specifically told Lopez that Madison was an attorney, that IN MY OPINION told me Lopez is a conniver, liar, perjurer and criminal.
I say this because IMO by the time Lopez submitted her sworn declaration she was fully cognizant of what she was doing. I don’t think that she signed the declaration without her knowing exactly the criminal conduct that she was accusing Madison of committing.
As to motive to lie in her declaration, in my opinion by the point of making those statements Lopez regretted going to Madison. She was desperate to undo the damage she was causing Mirkarimi. By that time she realized that unless she intends to move back to Venezuela with Theo, she had ended the cozy lifestyle that Mirkarimi provided.
IMO her attorneys and Mirkarimi told Lopez that is she kept the video out, the case would go away. She knew that the only way to win the exclusion motion was to throw Madison under the bus (a neighbor, friend and good Samaritan)
It would be OK, I guess, if Lopez chose to remain tight-lipped and let her lawyers make her argument that “I thought law school grad = lawyer.”
Far from suffering “unspeakable abuse” (your words), Lopez instead chose to:
– Slander Madison’s personal and business reputation;
– Accuse Madison of committing a crime (practicing law without a license);
– Cause problems for Madison should she ever want to become a licensed attorney (State Bar: “Ms. Madison, we need to discuss your telling people you were a lawyer”);
– Expose Madison to possible criminal prosecution for practicing law without a license;
– Subjecting Madison to scorn and ridicule, and conveying to the community that Madison is untrustworthy, incompetent, unprofessional and one who does not keep her promises.
Yeah, Ms. Lopez is some victim.
March 21, 2012 at 9:45 am
RCV didn’t provide the outcome progressives desired, so now they are back to blaming some obscure group of “corporate elite” who control the SFDCCC, and therefore, all of San Francisco. You should really look at who runs the DCCC – it is an elite group of people mostly who identify themselves as progressives. Ammiano, Leno, Campos, Avalos, Mar, Peskin, Kamala Harris – just to name a few. It will be interesting how many progressive supervisors stand up for Mirikirimi – he only needs three. As for the Sheriff’s department – at least Mayor Lee appointed a law enforcement professional, and not another politician to act as interim sheriff.
March 20, 2012 at 7:19 pm
@marc:
Well put: “But the real issue here is the corrupt elites who own San Francisco government not giving any quarter to anyone who has not “paid his dues” through subservience to the Democrat/Corporate elites.”
And, meanwhile, as this is draining so much energy, the Sheriff’s Dept. is facing a huge increase in the # of prisoners, and the prisoner health care it’s obliged to provide, in very little time.
March 20, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Love to hear all of the people trying to defend a guy who bullies his wife, and admits that his treatment of her is criminal. Then they turn around and claim HE is a victim? Pathetic.
March 20, 2012 at 10:24 am
Just like the US is sending predator drones into Afghanistan in order to “protect” women and children from the ravages of a misogynist Taliban, so is Gascon attacking a family to “protect” women from domestic violence.
How much more paternalistic can you get when a male dominated legal system marginalizes the sentiments of a women under the auspices of protecting her? Since when do we treat alleged crimes as statistical affairs instead of addressing the facts of the case on the record? When have you ever seen the name of a minor child splayed across the media waves before which will follow him through out his googleable life?
Mirkarimi has handled this horribly. But the real issue here is the corrupt elites who own San Francisco government not giving any quarter to anyone who has not “paid his dues” through subservience to the Democrat/Corporate elites .
They win. They have made it so that elections are meaningless, that only the annointed might serve. Nobody in their right mind with values and principles is going to put themselves on the line to elect anyone to public office ever again if this is what we can expect.
OCCUPY!
March 20, 2012 at 9:10 am
Tami, I couldn’t agree with you more about this:
“They have infantilized and marginalized Eliana as if she is just an object to be used, and then discarded! They were the ones that had no respect for her as a woman, nor did they honor her humanity.”
March 20, 2012 at 9:01 am
My dear Tami, even Nixon’s good friends knew when it was time to throw him under the bus (you may not be old enough to recall that). If the roles had been reversed and it was Mirkarimi prosecuting Gascon, it would have looked pretty the same. Mirkarimi woulda played it to the mat, don’t even kid yourself.
March 20, 2012 at 12:36 am
Eliana and their son have suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of Gascon and Aguilar-Tarchi, and the so-called “DV” advocates have shown themselves to be self-centered opportunists who need to capitalize on people’s misery in order to make a living. They are not about saving DV victims, they are about drawing their salaries! They have infantilized and marginalized Eliana as if she is just an object to be used, and then discarded! They were the ones that had no respect for her as a woman, nor did they honor her humanity.
They have taken an ally, a good and decent man, and made him a poster boy for the those that indeed do abuse their partners. Regardless of Gascon’s profoundly flawed take on this, I believe the Sheriff is factually innocent, many innocent people take pleas in order to avoid harsher penalties. Did he even attend law school, much less graduate? EVERY DAY INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE CONVICTED, AND EVEN EXECUTED FOR CRIMES THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH!
Gascon: Google “Innocence Project,” and broaden your legal horizons.
Now that Ross has been sentenced, can he not serve as a role model for other men? If he can go to counseling, etc., let that serve as an example to others. If the DV advocates really wanted to help DV victims, they would commend him, and work with him to continue the good work they’ve collaborated on!
I think we need to slash Gascon’s budget in half, he needs to learn to do more with less like the rest of us in government, and split the proceeds amongst the Public Defender, and with programs for youth.