South County Court Commissioner Gregory Saldivar, who by most
accounts has been a hard-working member of the criminal justice
system for the past 16 years, should nevertheless be investigated
for his role in the tow-and-sue scam case that involved a San
Benito County family who collectively filed more than 2,000 small
claims lawsuits.
South County Court Commissioner Gregory Saldivar, who by most accounts has been a hard-working member of the criminal justice system for the past 16 years, should nevertheless be investigated for his role in the tow-and-sue scam case that involved a San Benito County family who collectively filed more than 2,000 small claims lawsuits.
A similar plea was penned back in January, but it bears repeating.
The family, which includes Vincent Cardinalli, 68, and his son Paul Greer, 34, brought an avalanche of lawsuits in Santa Clara and San Benito counties against unwitting motorists for towing and storage fees on vehicles they either had sold or never owned in the first place. Deputy District Attorney Victor Chen said the family also targeted undocumented residents or those who spoke little English. When defendants tried to fight back, father and son often zeroed in on technicalities and advanced frivolous arguments, according to Greg Adler, an attorney for Copart – an auto auction company that was a target of such lawsuits.
Though Cardinalli and Greer hadn’t towed a car in years – they operated separate companies – they were awarded $232,000 in judgments over an 18-month period ending in August 2006. Those awards represented 111 cases – less than a quarter of the cases they filed in the Santa Clara County. And when defendants didn’t pay, the duo marshaled the power and blessings of the small claims court to raid bank accounts, garnish paychecks and arrest elusive defendants.
Cardinalli was sentenced to 14 years in prison in January. Greer was sentenced to eight years for his role. They are incarcerated at a North Kern County state prison in Delano.
After fending off three of Greer’s lawsuits, Adler dedicated countless hours of his own time sifting through court documents and uncovered several patterns in the family’s court records. Saldivar’s tendency to rule in favor of Cardinalli and Greer, as well as Cardinalli and Greer’s preference to have cases heard by Saldivar, set off “red flags,” Adler said.
And those “red flags” should be heeded by new District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who should investigate or call for a grand jury investigation.
In all but one of the files Adler reviewed, cases that were originally heard by Saldivar but later appealed to the Superior Court by the small claims defendants were overturned by the higher court judges, he said. Other judges and commissioners often ruled in favor of the people that Greer and Cardinalli sued.
“Saldivar is a percipient witness to crimes that occurred in his courtroom, in his presence,” Deputy District Attorney Dale Lohman wrote at one point. “Many of the charged crimes occurred in his courtroom, on his watch. His courtroom provided the backdrop and the opportunity for the defendants’ criminal scheme.”
That makes us wonder. How many times must you hear the same explanation from scores of people claiming they never owned the vehicle or sold it years prior, before thinking something might be amiss? Adler and Chen said they would neither confirm nor deny Saldivar was being investigated for his rulings but something stinks and somebody needs to get to the bottom of it.
It’s time for the District Attorney to determine what role Saldivar played.
