Jan. 12--There's a new sheriff in town, but he may already be in trouble with the law himself.
San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, sworn in just last weekend, is under investigation for domestic violence after a Dec. 31 dust-up that sent his wife -- a Venezuelan former telenovela star -- rushing to a neighbor's house with a bruised arm.
Eliana Lopez now insists her husband isn't guilty of anything, but the neighbor's videotape of her bruise and text messages between the neighbor and Lopez have District Attorney George Gascon probing whether Mirkarimi, 50, should be criminally charged.
The city is abuzz from the Marina to the Mission, and the stakes are high: A misdemeanor conviction would at the very least make him California's only sheriff prohibited from carrying a gun and forced to attend weekly counseling sessions. A felony conviction would turn him out of office and most likely land him behind bars, perhaps in the jail he now runs.
The New Year's Eve incident led Superior Court Judge Katherine Feinstein to recuse herself from swearing in Mirkarimi, lest he soon be a defendant. So former Mayor Art Agnos stepped in to administer the oath to Mirkarimi on Sunday, as Lopez stood smiling with her arm around her husband, their young son between them.
"It's notable whenever any elected official is suspected of breaking any law, and when a top law enforcement official is investigated for a serious crime like domestic violence, that's a very
big deal," said veteran San Francisco political consultant Dan Newman. "It ain't merely a parking violation he's accused of, and he isn't just Anonymous Joe Public."
Most of the city's political class is "holding its breath to see whether DA Gascon will file charges and what they will be," said another longtime San Francisco political consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of alienating potential clients. "I haven't heard credible political voices publicly rooting for Sheriff Mirkarimi to leave the office he took three days ago. I have heard lots of people encouraging a speedy resolution to this based on the facts."
Robert Waggener, Mirkarimi's attorney, said he's confident his sheriff client isn't guilty of anything, yet the case "is getting more attention than a normal domestic violence investigation. There's no doubt about that, in terms of the layers of investigating. They're probing and prodding where normally you don't hear about them doing those types of things."
He wouldn't elaborate. "I'd hate to think there's political stuff behind it, but who knows?" he said. "I can't get an answer from them in terms of if and when they're going to make a decision."
But Omid Talai, Gascon's spokesman, said, "Legally it's not different than the hundreds of other cases that we see every year, and that's how we're approaching it."
Talai said Gascon's office has received all the evidence from San Francisco police and is "in the process of taking a look at that information and trying to decide whether a crime occurred and whether we can prove that crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Gascon hopes to make a decision by the end of the week, Talai added.
Mirkarimi, a Green-turned-Democrat who had served as a San Francisco supervisor since 2005, mustered the city's progressive vote to beat out three other candidates for the sheriff job in November. He succeeded Michael Hennessey, who had become an institution by serving as sheriff since 1980.
The political consultant who wouldn't divulge his name said Mirkarimi's is different than past cases of San Francisco officials running afoul of the law.
"There are misdemeanors and then there are misdemeanors; there are felonies and then there are felonies. When violence is alleged, different outcomes apply," he said, noting that former Supervisor Ed Jew was suspended by the mayor and then resigned long before pleading guilty to extortion and perjury charges, for which he's now serving a federal prison term. "Sheriff Mirkarimi could keep his office but be hamstrung in his ability to execute it."
The allegations alone could affect how he does the job, the consultant added, noting the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs' Association in June voted overwhelmingly to endorse Sheriff's Office Capt. Paul Miyamoto for the job; Mirkarimi got only two of the 367 votes cast.
"You start out with a rank and file of your employees that already weighed in that they would prefer someone else, he said. "So this just complicates matters to no end."
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/josh_richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
Copyright 2012 - The Oakland Tribune, Calif.
