B. The Plaintiff did not upload the documents onto the web or pressure his wife to do so. Mrs. Seipler uploaded the documents out of anger, fear and concern for her family.
Defendants claim that either Plaintiff posted the disputed documents on the Internet or his wife did so at his direction. The evidence does not support these contentions.
It is undisputed that Rosalinda Seipler (“Rosa” or “Mrs. Seipler) created two blogs in May-June 2011 and posted some confidential personnel documents on these blogs.
Mrs. Seipler testified that: For three years, she felt angry, worried, and helpless in the face of MCSO’s harsh treatment of husband, which was destroying her family financially and emotionally. (Rosalinda Seipler Testimony, Transcript (“R. Seipler TR.”) at 1467-1468).
Mrs. Seipler selected the offending documents from a box that was organized for the depositions that were taking place (Z. Seipler, Tr. 343, 468-471) (R. Seipler, Tr., 1383).
MCSO was “targeting” her husband for reporting racial profiling in the department, while doing nothing about the profiling that Zane reported. (Id. at 1442, 1445.)
After all, the department removed Zane from the SWAT team, no longer employed him as a Field Training Officer or a First Aid Trainer and ultimately placed him on administrative leave.
It seemed that the department was more determined to demote Zane that to investigate Zane’s allegations of racial profiling. (Id. at 1443-1446. )
Indeed, at the time Mrs. Seipler put the disputed documents up onto the web, the MCSO had still not reinstated Zane too the department, even though he had won his job back three times.
Rosa became aware that an internal investigation of 51 deputies, led by Mr. Sotos’ law firm, determined that only seventeen of the officers had deliberately misidentified the race of drivers they ticketed. (Id. at 1448-1449).
Rosa was concerned that Mr. Sotos was purportedly investigating the same officers and department that he represented as an attorney. (Id. at 1446-7.)
The department did not impose any disciplinary action on any of the seventeen officers, including Jeremy Bruketta, who had misidentified the race of drivers on hundreds of tickets in one year. (Id. at 1451).
In disturbing contrast, Defendant Sheriff Nygren sought to arrest Zane for filling out two tickets incorrectly. (Id. at 1455.)
= = = = =
Part 8 tomorrow.