The California Attorneys General’s Office has repeatedly facilitated atrocities, and dismantled accountability, under Rob Bonta, Casey Hallinan-Hicks, Melissa Weikel, Lupe Zinzun, Xavier Bacerra, and others.
The following discussion of seven incidents highlights the clear systemic corruption within the California Attorney General’s Office, under Rob Bonta, and his predecessors: Xavier Bacerra, and Kamala Harris, and their staff: Casey Hallinan-Hicks, Lupe Zinzun, Melissa Weikel, and others. Through the unjust prosecution of deputy DA Diana Teran and the active coverup of criminal atrocities committed by law enforcement officials, it unveils a cultural failure to uphold even a modicum of the most basic laws or observe, honor, or protect citizens’ most basic rights. The situation underscores the urgent need for community oversight, reform, and reevaluation of the ethical responsibilities of public officials.
1: Unconstitutional Criminal Prosecution of Diana Teran for Legally Required Accountability Work in the LA DA’s Office
Rob Bonta is attempting to criminally prosecute long-standing LA County Deputy District Attorney, Diana Teran, maliciously and illegally, with 11 felonies for doing legally required police oversight duties.
Commonly called the Brady Law, the US Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement is legally required to keep data on law enforcement officer misconduct, and to disclose that data under certain circumstances. Bonta is prosecuting Teran based on her act of sharing publicly available court records, privately, with her co-workers in the DA’s Office. Nothing she did is outside the basic legal requirements of the Brady Law.
The Attorney General’s Office acknowledged receipt of our Public Records Act requests, but openly refused to comply with a portion of them without properly citing exemptions to the Public Records Act, and then ignored our request for the records that they are willing to provide. We have been attempting to get records for multiple years and have been faced with continual open defiance for the California Public Records Act laws by their office.
2: Facilitating the Coverup of Sonoma County’s Government Run Torture Ring
Rob Bonta, and his predecessors, Xavier Bacerra, and Kamala Harris, condoned and sponsored in writing Sonoma County’s Torture Ring, and ongoing open practice of destroying, concealing, and illegally lying about crucial evidence, and other crimes.
We published an article about the torture ring here:
In 2018, the Attorney General’s Office was notified of an incident of torture and near murder that occurred in 2017, and of the policies of torturing people, and the incident where the torture ring was being run in 2015. The Attorney General Office staff member running the public point of contact – and who was notified – is Lupe Zinzun. She refers the public to the local DA’s Offices.
Available on the Attorney General Office’s website is a written copy of the Attorney General Office’s policy that local DA’s Offices are to take complaints from members of the public in cases of law enforcement officer misconduct, and Zinzun repeatedly referred to this policy, but repeatedly openly refused to contact the Sonoma County DA’s Office.
In this case (and in all other cases to our knowledge) the local DA’s Office refused to take a complaint from non-law enforcement, or members of the public, in violation of the Attorney General Office’s official written policies, and in violation of the California Constitution, Article 5, Section 13, which legally requires all DA’s Offices to adhere to the policies of the Attorney General.
Richard Celli was the main point of contact at the Sonoma County DA’s Office. Mark Azzuni was also corresponded with. Both knew about Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office practice of destruction of evidence, and openly denied victims the constitutional right to Equal Protection.
Celli has gunned down two different unarmed individuals, and was ruled against by at least one jury, as liable for the homicide(s). He made $345,000 in one year, as a police officer, and then was hired into the DA’s Office, in the Investigations Department.
Celli was informed about the policies of the Attorney General, and the legally binding requirements of California Constitution Article 5, Section 13, and openly violated the law anyway.
The receptionists at the Sonoma County DA’s Office refuse to provide their names or any sort of identification, hang up on members of the public, transfer them to dead lines, have never to our knowledge returned voicemails, and we have a report that they have even prosecuted a victim for calling them less than three times for assistance.
Celli has since been promoted to manager of the investigations department.
Zinzun, at the Attorney General’s Office, refused to contact anyone at the Sonoma County DA’s Office, and repeatedly instructs them to call the local DA’s Offices, even after being informed that the DA’s Office openly refuse to take a complaint. A complaint was sent to the DA’s Office. The DA’s Office acknowledged receipt over the phone, and openly stated they were throwing it away.
Complaints to the Attorney General’s Office are rejected if they do not include a written response from the local DA’s Office.
Complaints that are accepted (after multiple years and countless hours of patience, courtesy, inordinate good faith, and complying with being repeatedly sent on wild goose chases knowing it is a waste of time) are ignored. Staff at the Attorney General’s Office “Public Inquiry Unit” (the public point of contact) forge each others’ signatures, and violate their own policies, under Casey Hallinan-Hicks.
The Attorney General’s Office has an official policy dictating how complaints about government officials are to be handled. This policy dictates that complaints should be reviewed by two different people in two different departments. Casey Hallinan is in neither department. And it has been repeatedly shown and admitted that government officials forge other people’s signatures. And there is reason to believe that Casey Hallinan forged someone else’s signature. Regardless, complaints are not reviewed by two people from the required departments as Hallinan-Hicks is not in either of the required departments, and the response was only signed by one individual. The response contained false statements made by Hallinan. Hallinan was CC’ed in the response. And Hallinan created a defamatory memo about the victim in an agency memo.
3: No Investigation Into the Murder of Richard Castillo
In 2008, Frank Hernandez – a cop in LA – deliberately shot a bystander in the leg, from the back, for no reason, and then lied that the victim had a gun. The rest of the LAPD played along in the lie, and charged with the victim with assault with a deadly weapon. It was made clear that the victim — a bystander — was not armed, when after he was shot, no weapon was found either on his person or in his house. The DA dropped the false charges against the victim, but declared that Hernandez committed no wrongdoing (by shooting a bystander in the leg for no reason). Hernandez had several other complaints against him, had committed several other shootings, and had been personally massively protested against, resulting in more violence by the LAPD against protestors against Hernandez.
In 2020, Hernandez heinously beat a man named Richard Castillo. Hernandez and his LAPD co-conspirators lied that Castillo had been combative, and that there was no body camera footage of the incident, even though they had body cameras and were required to use them under office policy. Unbeknownst to them, the incident was filmed by a bystander, showing that the victim, Castillo, was not resisting or being combative, and was complying, and that Hernandez was standing there throwing wide haymakers with extreme force at the side of Castillo’s head (where such force is likely to be lethal or cause permanent brain injury) for a long while, while Castillo stood there, doing absolutely nothing. Castillo sued the LAPD, the LAPD suddenly produced their body camera footage, and Hernandez was convicted criminally of assault, but did no jail time. A week before Castillo’s deposition in the civil case, Castillo was murdered.
No investigation was done, by anyone, into the murder, whatsoever.
Hernandez is still a cop to this day.
4: Condoned LAPD taking turns forcing their horses to trample an absolutely peaceful protester and striking him repeatedly in the head with nightsticks, as seen by ABC News helicopter camera.
During the protests in LA against Federal ICE agents’ continual unlawful seizures of people with no probable cause, footage was released by ABC News taken by their helicopter camera of several mounted LAPD when they seemed to think nobody was looking. It shows several LAPD officers taking turns forcing their horses to trample a young civilian, who does absolutely nothing wrong during the entirety of the footage, and also taking turns striking him with extreme force in the head with their nightsticks.
Rob Bonta did nothing about this.
5: Condoned the arson of the home of a man in Siskiyou County by the father of a local DA’s Office employee
In Siskiyou County, two men named Dan Deppen and Donald Phelps (the father of a Siskiyou County DA’s Office employee) decided to run their neighbor off his own land. Phelps and Deppen repeatedly destroyed the road which was a historic, deeded easement for their neighbor to use since prior to them moving there, and threatened to shoot the man’s dog, while being filmed. They fraudulently changed the deed with the recorder’s office in violation of the law. Because of the ongoing shenanigans, the victim set up hidden cameras around his house. These cameras caught two men, out in the middle of the boonies, burning down the victim’s house. Phelps later also shot at the victim.
Dan Deppen is listed as a friend of the then-Sheriff (Jon Lopey) on Facebook, and the Sheriff (Lopey) directed his deputies to illegally arrest the victim if the victim went to his own property. Cal Fire, and the Siskiyou County Courts (Judge Karen Dixon, and others) both openly defied and violated various laws to collude to deprive the victim of his rights.
The Attorney General wouldn’t assist the victim or enforce any of their policies or laws or communicate with anyone at Siskiyou County.
Casey Hallinan-Hicks condoned the acts of arson, shooting at the victim, and depriving the victim of his constitutional right to Equal Protection by the Sheriff’s Office, DA’s Office, Cal Fire, and manifested violation of the constitutional right to Equal Protection herself, and would not enforce the legally binding policies on or communicate with state or local officials.
Melissa A. Swart-Weikel, the supervisor of the Public Inquiry Unit, acted unprofessionally, rudely, and childishly by talking over the victim whenever the victim began talking, and when the victim stopped talking to allow her to speak, she would stop talking, then when the victim started talking again, she would again talk over the victim, then stop again.
https://sites.google.com/view/russfarnsworth
6: Condoned Mayor Dominic Foppoli’s Serial Rape Spree
In Sonoma County, Dominic Foppoli, who was the mayor of Windsor during the time all this occurred, was accused of rape or sexual assault by 14 different women, including acts of violent brutality, using date rape drugs, repeated accusations of coercing his victims into excessive alcohol consumption prior to sexually assaulting them, and trying to blackmail the women after filming sexual activity while they were date-rape-drugged without their knowledge.
Because one of the victims was a DA’s Office employee, the County sent the case to Rob Bonta’s Attorney General’s Office. Bonta and his staff sat on the case for about 4 years, until the statute of limitations would have normally expired. Foppoli, meanwhile, moved to Italy, literally purchased a castle, renovated it and rented it out to vacationers, and married a barely legal Italian woman. Bonta and his office failed to acknowledge that leaving the country during a criminal investigation extends the statute of limitations, but incorrectly claimed that the statute of limitations had expired, and did nothing about any of the 14 accusations of rape or sexual assault.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/windsor-dominic-foppoli-timeline
7: Illegally pulled millions of dollars in public funding to defend an illegal logging operation from a local non-profit suing to enforce the laws.
During the same time period that Bonta was sitting on the Foppoli case doing nothing, his office was also pulling millions of dollars (this is estimated, since their offices openly defies the Public Records Act statutes) in public funding to litigate against a non-profit called Guerneville Forest Coalition which was trying to save 224 acres of redwoods from illegal logging. We wrote an article about this here:
https://theclarity.news/2025/08/23/bonta-logs-redwoods/
Conclusion
Rob Bonta’s prosecution of Diana Teran is a blatant abuse of governmental power designed to chill oversight and accountability even when legally required. This raises serious concerns about how those in authority manipulate the legal system for their own ends. Teran’s case is particularly alarming as it may deter others from fulfilling their oversight responsibilities or reporting misconduct, allowing government corruption and criminal activity to reward itself and flourish, unchecked.
These incidents are just a handful of consistently similar examples that illustrate a pervasive pattern of systemic corruption at the California Attorney General’s Office. These are not isolated incidents. We have other reports of other victims being treated the same way. The California Attorney General’s Office do not enforce their policies on the local DA’s Offices, and do not take complaints from the public about crimes committed by government officials, resulting in widespread violation of the Equal Protection Clause guaranteed in both the State and Federal Constitutions. These entrenched policies facilitate criminal felonies and atrocities committed by law enforcement and other public officials, as well as crimes committed by the family members of public officials. The glaring lack of accountability for violent acts, and open refusal to investigate cases involving officers like Frank Hernandez, the Sonoma County torture ring, or Mayor Dominic Foppoli reveals a disturbing disregard for justice, and open defiance for the law. When officials shield other individuals just because they on the government payroll, regardless of the gravity of their crimes, they jeopardize and dismantle some of the most fundamental elements of civil society: the safety of society and the legally guaranteed rights of citizens.
Diverting public funds to defend illegal operations exemplifies a shocking misallocation of taxpayer resources and highlights the need for transparency and ethical governance. The evidence underscores an urgent demand for greater accountability and scrutiny of those wielding power, emphasizing the necessity of checks and balances in the justice system. This situation serves as a powerful call for heightened public awareness and advocacy for reform, and why communities need to insist on transparency and accountability from their elected officials.
Actively dismantling the accountability of law to facilitate heinous criminal atrocities (such as serial rape, torture rings, arson, murder, destruction of evidence, and unconstitutional retaliation against legally required accountability work in DA’s Offices, etc.) is the exact opposite of what the state attorney general’s office should be doing with public funds.
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