D.A. Probes Taping of Trustee’s Calls

OXNARD —  In a new twist to long-standing tensions on the Oxnard school board, the district attorney’s office recently began an inquiry into allegations that the phone calls of trustee Jim Suter may have been illegally tape-recorded, sources said Tuesday.

District attorney’s office investigators have searched the homes of elementary school trustee Mary Barreto and a longtime district employee under a warrant sealed last month by Ventura County Municipal Judge John E. Dobroth, according to sources and court records.

Suter said investigators last month told him that his phone conversations had been recorded for an unspecified period and that Barreto and migrant education consultant Pete Placencia were the focus of the probe.

“They wanted to let me know that my calls had been recorded and [told me] not to use my telephone,” Suter said. “Why would they record my calls? I’m no threat to anybody.”

Placencia refused to comment on the allegations. Sources said his involvement in the matter is unclear.

And Barreto, through her attorney, denied any wrongdoing.

A spokesman for the district attorney’s office has refused to confirm or deny the existence of an inquiry, although other school board members said they also have been informed about the matter by Oxnard Supt. Bernard Korenstein.

Korenstein has also declined to comment.

Ventura attorney Tim Quinn, who represents Barreto, said his client did nothing wrong and he is confident she will be cleared by the district attorney’s office.

“Believe me, she didn’t commit any crime. She didn’t do anything wrong legally or ethically,” Quinn said. “When the investigation is finished, the people who elected her will see that she is above reproach.”

Quinn said all Barreto knows is that on two occasions in recent months, someone anonymously left a cassette tape at her Oxnard home. The two tapes apparently were recordings of phone conversations between Suter and district employees; in some cases confidential information was being discussed, Quinn said.

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Concerned that information on confidential personnel matters was being leaked, Quinn said, Barreto discussed the issue with a third trustee and revealed the existence of the tapes.

That trustee apparently took the information to district attorney’s investigators, who last month launched an inquiry, Quinn said.

“She did not make the tapes,” Quinn said. “She did not authorize the tapes being made. She was not aware that the tapes existed until after they were made.”

Barreto’s attorney confirmed that investigators have twice questioned her and, armed with a search warrant, escorted her from her job at Oxnard City Hall to her home to confiscate the tapes. Quinn said Barreto cooperated fully with investigators and she readily handed over the tapes.

“She was provided these tapes apparently from someone concerned that board business was being discussed with non-board members,” Quinn said. “To go to the D.A. [herself] would reveal board business to the public and do exactly what she was trying to prevent. She hoped to stop it internally by stopping the leak.”

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For his part, Suter said he has no recollection of ever discussing confidential board business with anyone. But he said that concern misses the point.

“I feel that having my phone calls monitored is an absolute abomination,” Suter said Tuesday, adding that investigators have told him little about the matter since first contacting him in mid-July. “No matter what I said to anybody, that’s completely irrelevant. They were private conversations and they should have remained private.”

The Oxnard elementary school board has a long history of tension and acrimony, especially centered around racial divisions that years ago erupted in open fights on the board.

In 1994, the Oxnard chapter of the Assn. of Mexican-American Educators recommended that school board members--three whites and two Latinas at the time--undergo sensitivity training to heal internal divisions on the board.

Later that year, the white majority board members--including Suter--handed Barreto a letter with a laundry list of complaints against her.

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Among the complaints was that Barreto had spoken at length in Spanish during meetings without translating and she had been “overly accommodating to those who do not speak English.”

After Barreto made the letter public, parents and community leaders appeared at board meetings in droves to defend her and condemn the three white board members.

Since then, the makeup of the board has changed and the public outbursts have quieted. But sources say they believe some of those old tensions remain.

Suter, the only white board member remaining on the board, said he thought the divisions on the board had been laid to rest.

That’s why, he said, he was “shocked” to learn that his phone conversations had been recorded and that investigators were trying to determine whether Barreto was involved.

“We’ve been against each other on a lot of votes, but our relationship really in the last few years has been great,” Suter said. “I just can’t imagine what this is all about.”

Times correspondent Regina Hong contributed to this story.