He might have resigned from his position with Santa Barbara County, but Gil Armijo, former executive staff assistant to Supervisor Joe Centeno (5th District), will still be interacting on a personal level with another county agency: the District Attorney’s office.
In a recent interview with the Sun, Armijo said he plans to withdraw all of his retirement funds to hire an attorney to aid him in his legal battle.
Armijo faces felony perjury charges associated with a DUI case. The 58-year-old was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in December 2007, and eventually reached a no-contest plea bargain with the Santa Barbara County Superior Court. County prosecutors later charged him with perjury for stating at a Department of Motor Vehicles hearing that he wasn’t behind the wheel during the incident.
Armijo is seeking dismissal of the perjury case, claiming that prosecutors have “a personal vendetta against [him]” and are targeting him because of his position with the county.
“It’s unreal,” Armijo said. “You can’t just keep a person in court over and over again … once a case is settled, it’s settled.”
The District Attorney’s office, however, maintains Armijo perjured himself when he told a DMV officer he wasn’t driving his car the night he was arrested.
And in no way, case prosecutor and Deputy District Attorney Darryl Perlin said, is Armijo being targeted because of his position with the county.
“We could care less who he worked for,” he explained. “There’s nothing to that.”
According to court documents, on Dec. 22, 2007, a sheriff’s deputy approached Armijo’s parked car around 4 a.m. at the intersection of Highways 101 and 150 outside Carpinteria. The deputy suspected Armijo—who was found outside his car—of driving under the influence. Backup deputies were called in and Armijo was instructed to take a Breathalyzer test.
A handful of readings found that Armijo had a blood alcohol level of approximately .16, or twice the legal limit. That came as a surprise to Armijo.
“I had not had anything to drink since 10:30 p.m.,” Armijo later told the Sun.
Armijo said he had consumed “a couple of glasses of champagne and a couple of glasses of wine” several hours beforehand at a Christmas party in Santa Maria.
Based on his own investigation, Armijo said, the Breathalyzer reading was altered by radio frequencies from the sheriff’s deputies’ handheld radios and car radios.
“I’ve done a lot of research that shows radio frequency can interfere,” he said. “There’s no way I was .16. If a person’s .16, he’s pretty much passed out.”
Deputy District Attorney Gerald Franklin, the lead researcher for the perjury case, said that theory is “absolutely false.”
“It’s scientific bullsh-t,” he said. “[Armijo] claims there are experts who would say it’s possible, but show me one. That theory is just bogus.”
Nonetheless, Armijo said a taped recording from the sheriff’s dashboard cameras would exonerate him because it would clearly show he wasn’t intoxicated. But he alleges the Sheriff’s Department and/or District Attorney’s office “edited or deleted” the first 13 minutes of the encounter.
That recording, Franklin said, wasn’t edited or deleted because it never existed. The arresting deputy, he explained, got out of his car to speak with Armijo and forgot to turn on the camera. Later, a more experienced officer arrived and turned the camera on.
Additionally, Armijo told the Sun a “female acquaintance” drove him from Santa Maria to Carpinteria—a statement he swore to at the DMV hearing and later reiterated in court.
The woman, Armijo said, stopped in Carpinteria to meet up with a family member and left him in the car. Shortly after, the sheriff’s deputy picked him up.
Armijo alleges the arresting deputy lied on court documents, stating that he saw Armijo driving his car.
Representation at the Sheriff’s Department refused to comment on that matter. However, court documents state
the officer observed Armijo driving his vehicle, which was parked illegally along the highway.
“The report, I think, was filled out rather casually,” Franklin said. “There are some inconsistencies between the handwritten and typed [documents].”
He said the arresting deputy was required to fill in a pre-printed form, but added the section about the vehicle being parked in another section. The deputy also reported observing Armijo slurring his speech and smelling of alcohol.
“[Armijo] was repeatedly asked for the name of the driver during the hearing, but he refused to give it,” added prosecutor Perlin. “I think he thought he could say he was not driving and no one would be the wiser.”
Armijo said he is protecting the woman’s identity because the litigation is pending, and she is an illegal immigrant.
“I don’t want her to get in trouble,” Armijo said. “I don’t want her to have to deal with all of this.”
Armijo was scheduled to appear in court to seek dismissal of the perjury charges on Aug. 5, after the Sun’s press deadline.
“This case has ruined me health-wise, financially, socially, politically, and in terms of my job status,” he said. “[The prosecuting attorneys] think they are all powerful and all invincible. They think they can destroy a person at will. It’s not right.” m
Contact News Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 6-13, 2009.