No more Trung v. Janet

The California Supreme Court earlier today refused to review the appeal by former supervisor candidate Trung Nguyen challenging the recount that gave Janet Nguyen her election victory by 3 votes. See docket here.

That should be the end of all various complaints and lawsuits filed by the Garden Grove School Board member and his mastermind Mike Schroeder. (Unless the Bolsavik missed something, which is very much possible considering the number of proceedings held.)

There were also at least three other complaints – two with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, and one with Attorney General Jerry Brown. All three deal with just one topic: Janet Nguyen had set up a legal defense fund to fight Trung Nguyen’s lawsuit, but it turned out county rules don’t allow legal defense funds, so she had the money returned. The legal defense funds were in her attorney’s account, so the attorney wrote the refund checks, and they bounced. He wrote new checks.

Janet paid $5,000 in fines to the FPPC for the illegal legal defense fund. The return of the money mooted the other two complaints (the one filed with Jerry Brown claimed that because the checks bounced, Janet committed perjury).

Meanwhile, after trial judge Mike Brenner ruled on the recount and gave Janet her 3-vote victory, Trung Nguyen filed for a writ of mandate (a sort of emergency appeal) to the Court of Appeal. He lost. So he filed a regular appeal.

When he lost the emergency appeal, the Board of Supervisors voted to seat Janet, who took office as the highest ranking Vietnamese-American in county politics. That new reality on the ground made it very difficult for Trung’s court case. Predictably, Trung lost the regular appeal as well. So he sought review by the high court. That is the review that the Supreme Court declined today.

The Court of Appeal’s opinion is here. The earlier denial of writ of mandate is here.

The OC Register’s Peggy Lowe has an entry about the Supreme Court’s denial of review here.