The City of Santa Barbara just spent tens of thousands of dollars to prosecute a frivolous criminal complaint initiated by Police Chief Camerino Sanchez against Wayne Scoles, a Mesa resident for more than
25 years. On Wednesday, after less than three hours of deliberation,
12 jurors unanimously acquitted Mr. Scoles of both charges -- challenging to fight and disturbing the peace with volume.

They did so after six days of hearings in Superior Court.

The case grew out of an incident in Shoreline Park last June 27, 2008, when Mr. Scoles and Chief Sanchez got into an argument after Mr. Scoles approached the chief to discuss a lack of law enforcement in the park, where Mr. Scoles is an advocate for the elderly.

Chief Sanchez testified that Mr. Scoles shouted at him: "Someone needs to kick your a--. I'm going to do it, you m-----f---ing Mexican."

However, jurors in Judge Jean Dandona's courtroom did not find Chief Sanchez's testimony credible. For not only was the police chief's testimony consistently inconsistent with regard to detail, but his awkward delivery and body language (including facial twitches and
contortions) suggested untruthfulness to observers.

Far more important, all four witnesses to the Scoles/Sanchez altercation testified that Mr. Scoles never threatened Chief Sanchez with physical violence, never challenged him to fight, and never uttered a racial epithet.

When Chief Sanchez was asked on the stand what Mr. Scoles had been charged with, he replied, "I don't know, I haven't seen the police report."

Yet according to the testimony of Officer Rhynes, who arrived on the scene minutes after the police chief called for backup, Chief Sanchez was the arresting officer.

Such circumstances beg this question: How can an officer arrest someone without knowing what the charge is?

It can only mean that Chief Sanchez arrested Mr. Scoles simply to have him removed by force from a public park -- where the chief's nephew's wedding party was under way.

Thus Mr. Scoles was handcuffed and bustled by police cruiser to the police station where his interrogator, Detective Hunter, tried to coerce him into admitting that he had challenged Chief Sanchez to fight, stating to Mr. Scoles that the police already had several witnesses to back it up.

This was not true, Detective Hunter testified in court. The police had no such witnesses, but only Chief Sanchez's account.

Under cross-examination, Detective Hunter explained that police officers routinely use lies like that as a "tool" to gain confessions from suspects.

During the four hours Mr. Scoles was falsely imprisoned, he asked repeatedly to be given a polygraph examination so that he could prove his innocence. He was told that no polygraph examiner was available to conduct such a test.

Upon his release from custody, Mr. Scoles was vilified in the media through police press releases.

The District Attorney's office decided to prosecute Mr. Scoles even though it had no witnesses to corroborate Chief Sanchez's allegations, which he presumably manufactured once he realized he needed an actual law violated to a) save face and b) make it stick.

Prosecutors demanded the maximum $500 fine and six months probation.

"I'm not admitting guilt to anything," Mr. Scoles told his lawyer, Robert Landheer, and as a consequence Mr. Scoles mounted legal bills topping $20,000 to go to court and establish his innocence rather than capitulate inexpensively to a legal system that compels citizens to expend a small fortune just to remain in the arena and fight trumped up charges.

Now, in a bid to recover monies spent on retaining a lawyer and to recoup lost time defending his name, Mr. Scoles told The Investigator he intends to file lawsuits against Chief Sanchez and the Santa Barbara Police Department over false arrest and for violating his civil and constitutional rights to free assembly and free speech.

The conundrum we, as citizens, are left with is this: Did Cam Sanchez abuse his authority as police chief?

The facts, as established in court, strongly suggest that the police chief did indeed abuse his position of power to have an individual arrested, cuffed and removed from a public park, and then incarcerated against his will, not because this individual had broken any law (as a jury unanimously determined in less than three hours), but because he did not want this individual creating a spectacle in his presence.

The chief's abuse of authority was further compounded that afternoon when he allowed a limousine from his nephew's wedding party to block the eastbound traffic lane and bike path on Shoreline Drive, without a permit, for at least 40 minutes -- and to close the park's public sidewalk from pedestrian use, also without a permit.

Anyone else blocking Shoreline Drive would have been moved on or ticketed.

If Chief Sanchez abused his authority, twice, on that occasion, and then lied under oath to cover it up, what's to say he hasn't engaged in such misconduct on other occasions or can be trusted not to do so again?

Perhaps this is what the DA's office should have been investigating instead of having wasted its time and public money, in an ailing economy, on frivolous charges brought against Mr. Scoles.

Oh, and this: A prospective juror was excused from serving on the Wayne Scoles trial after disclosing to Judge Dandona a potential conflict of interest. Apparently, Chief Sanchez had threatened this person's relative, over a personal matter, with these ominous words:
"I'm not someone you want to mess with."

Abuse of authority? Threatening behavior?

Perhaps the wrong man was put on trial this month.

• Drug Dealer Exposed: A 16 year-old student at Santa Barbara High School who uses the AIM Instant Message call-sign prettyboyconn claims to deal drugs to everyone, and admits the following: "I deal at school, everywhere. . .weed and coke, thizzles (ecstasy), anything. . .."

Young, indiscreet prettyboyconn claims that he acquires illegal drugs from his 23-year-old godbrother, whom, he adds, "runs Santa Barbara County. He supplies all the medical clubs. I have the best bud in town."

Prettyboyconn further states that he makes so much money "it's not even funny."

He offers cocaine at $20 for "six or seven lines."

And if that isn't quite enough, prettyboyconn also reveals that he keeps his stash in a basement safe at the family home.

The buzz around Santa Barbara schools is that prettyboyconn does indeed engage in drug dealing.

The Investigator deeply considered this matter before outing prettyboyconn as a self-admitted drug dealer. We even consulted a local therapist, who offered this view: "If he writes these things in e-mail, he's not even good at this. He should be exposed for his own good -- and for the good of those using the drugs he sells them. It is also a serious matter for his parents. If illegal drugs are found in their home, they will be held accountable. Teens like this, who earn so much money from selling drugs, find it difficult thereafter to face an hourly wage in the real world. Since he is only 16, it will eventually be expunged from his record, so now is the right time for him to get caught. Because, at 18, it's going to stick, and if someone is still dealing drugs at 21 they're a fully fledged member of the criminal underworld."

To parents: Crack down on your teenagers or we will do it for you.

To teenagers dealing drugs: We are watching in ways you cannot even imagine.