THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH A STATEMENT FROM THE INVESTIGATOR WHO CONDUCTED AN INTERNAL AFFAIRS INVESTIGATION.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Clearlake's acting police chief is facing charges that he battered a Lakeport woman in an April 2010 confrontation, allegations his attorney said he was cleared of during separate internal affairs and district attorney investigations completed last year.
District Attorney Don Anderson told Lake County News that misdemeanor assault and battery charges were going to be filed this week against Craig Clausen, 40, acting as interim Clearlake Police chief since December.
Clausen is alleged to have had a confrontation with a 65-year-old female neighbor who he accused of calling his son a name.
The confrontation is reported to have turned physical when Clausen allegedly poked the woman in the face, twisted her arm behind her back and pushed her into the side of another neighbor's house.
Anderson – concerned about potential conflicts of interest – said the case will not be handled by his staff.
Instead, the case will be prosecuted in Lake County Superior Court by Mendocino County District Attorney C. David Eyster's staff under the supervision of the California Attorney General's Office, according to Anderson.
A message was left with Eyster's office Wednesday morning.
When Lake County News contacted him on Wednesday, Clausen said, “I can't respond.”
Interim Clearlake City Administrator Steve Albright said he also couldn't say much about the case either, since it was a pending investigation.
However, Clausen's attorney, Matt Pavone, said he was surprised in the renewed interest in a case that was thoroughly investigated and declined by the previous district attorney last year.
The Lake County Sheriff's Office originally submitted the case, alleging misdemeanor assault and battery and a misdemeanor count of making an arrest without authority, to the Lake County District Attorney's Office last spring. Former District Attorney Jon Hopkins considered the case and rejected it, according to case documents.
Pavone said Clausen also was cleared by an independent internal affairs investigation – conducted by an outside investigator – that former Clearlake Police Chief Allan McClain ordered be completed last year.
The internal affairs investigation included an interview of Clausen witnessed by Hopkins who, after a full review, declined to prosecute, said Pavone.
Likewise, Pavone said the internal affairs investigator made his own recommendations last September that no discipline be imposed on Clausen.
“This matter was all over and done with and I'm totally baffled as to why it's resurfacing,” Pavone said, noting that the case refiling was not being initiated by the alleged victim but rather by local officials.
“I'm wondering why a new sheriff or a new DA would be reviving a case that was fully investigated and rejected prior to these new people assuming office,” Pavone said.
Although Pavone said that the internal affairs investigation included a suggestion to not discipline Clausen in the case, the investigator who did the work said he made no such recommendation – or any recommendation at all, for that matter.
Gary Hill, a retired chief investigator for the Lake County District Attorney's Office, conducted the internal affairs investigation.
While Hill said it may have appeared to Pavone – for whom he said he has the highest regard – that he had recommended the case be rejected, he told Lake County News that the report he submitted to McClain “included neither a written nor verbal recommendation as to a final disposition.”
Sheriff Frank Rivero said he found out about the case after taking office earlier this year. He reviewed it and, believing it should have been charged to begin with, directed staff to send it to Anderson for review. He had a third charge added to the original two, assault by a police officer, which Anderson did not mention as being part of the charged case.
“I'm confident that it needs to be sent up for prosecution and that's why I did it,” Rivero said late Tuesday, adding, “My feeling about the investigation we conducted was that it was complete.”
Anderson said no additional investigation was done either by the sheriff's office or his staff. “We received a request from the sheriff's department to reconsider the case, and that was the first time we even heard about the incident.”
When he reviewed the case, Anderson said it raised a lot of concerns for him, so he handed it over to Eyster.
Rivero said he contacted Clausen on Tuesday afternoon to notify him that the case was going to be charged.
Also on Tuesday, Rivero notified interim Clearlake City Administrator Steve Albright, Clearlake City Council members Joey Luiz and Jeri Spittler, and members of the Board of Supervisors, along with County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox and County Counsel Anita Grant.
The sheriff said time is of the essence, as the statute of limitations runs out at the one year mark, which is coming up at the start of next month.
Case documents obtained by Lake County News stated that the incident for which Clausen will be charged occurred on the afternoon of April 5, 2010.
Rivero said his promise during last year's campaign for sheriff was to treat everyone equally.
“The guy's innocent until proven guilty and we should allow the system to work,” he said.
Questioning the motives behind the case, Pavone said, “I wonder if there may be some other agenda going on here,” pointing out that Clausen is a candidate to permanently hold the Clearlake Police chief's job, and wondering if the case is being used against Clausen by political forces within the city and county.
Pavone called the case a waste of the county's resources, suggesting that officials should be working on other matter that have yet to be investigated.
Case documents describe confrontation
Normally, records of open investigations are not granted to the media.
However, Lake County News obtained the records of the investigation – after it had been rejected by Hopkins and was considered closed – through a Public Records Act request submitted in December to then-Sheriff Rod Mitchell.
According to documents Lake County News received at that time as part of the request, Hopkins and investigator Gary Hill looked at the case and subsequently rejected it.
Lake County News was notified late last month by Capt. Rob Howe that the sheriff's office had refiled the case with the District Attorney's Office at Rivero's direction.
A narrative written by Deputy Carla Hockett explained that she was dispatched to an address in Lakeport on April 6, 2010, to speak with a woman who reported that she had been assaulted.
The alleged victim was walking her dogs in the neighborhood when a 9-year-old boy, later identified as Clausen's son, told her to get off their property. Hockett reported that the woman told the boy she was not on his property, that she had permission to be where she was and that he needed to “get a hobby.”
Hockett's report when on to explain that the woman stopped to see a friend who she told about the incident with the boy, telling her that the “little s***” scared her to death.
The case documents explain that the woman and her two dogs were standing on her friend's porch – with the friends standing just inside the screen door – when Clausen is alleged to have come onto the porch to confront the woman about what he heard her call his son. The woman claimed he grabbed her right shoulder, spun her around and poked her in the face with his finger, according to the report.
When the woman attempted to put her hand up to stop him poking her in her left cheek, she alleged Clausen grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her back as far as he could and slammed her against the side of her friend's house. He was reported to be so angry that he was spitting on her as he was yelling.
He then is alleged to have asked her if she wanted to go to jail that night, she said no and tried to apologize but he “said that was never going to happen,” and then held up a cell phone, claiming to have recorded the incident.
The neighbor who is alleged to have witnessed Clausen and the woman in the confrontation told Hockett that she heard Clausen yelling and screaming at her friend, and confirmed that he twisted the other woman's arm and that the woman had hit her head on the screen door.
When Hockett interviewed Clausen about the incident, he called the alleged victim in the incident the “crazy lady with the dogs,” and said he thought she was intoxicated.
Hockett's report stated that Clausen recounted telling the woman that “he does not want to bring work home and she knows what he does for a living.” He also reportedly stated that he grabbed her arm and she turned, causing her arm to go behind her back. Clausen stated that he asked her if she wanted to go to jail and “please don't make me bring work home.” He said the incident was the first time he had spoken to the female neighbor.
Hockett subsequently requested a complaint be filed against Clausen, and Det. Nicole Costanza followed up with the alleged victim on April 6, 2010, based on a request from the District Attorney's Office, according to case documents.
Costanza noted in her report that the woman said she didn't want to file charges against Clausen, although the woman alleged that he frightened and hurt her.
However, in a followup phone conversation on May 7, 2010, the woman told Costanza she wanted to go forward with charges but was waiting to speak to her doctor. On May 11, 2010, the woman told Hockett in a phone conversation that she wanted to press charges in the case.
Costanza also interviewed other neighbors, including one man who alleged that the woman at the center of the case had mental issues and tended to make up stories, and appeared to have been drinking that day.
The man said the alleged victim had called him claiming that Clausen had pushed, shoved and grabbed her, and that she would have his job over it. The man said he was in favor of Clausen “100 percent” and would go to court on his behalf.
The day after the confrontation the woman reported going to her doctor because of pain she was experiencing from injuries she said she sustained. She reported continuing to have muscle spasms in her upper back a month later.
Two days after the confrontation with Clausen, the woman said she was outside of her home loading items into her vehicle so she could go and stay with her son out of town. She told Costanza that Clausen was parked in the roadway behind her truck – which was in her driveway – and that he pointed at her with his index finger and drove off, which she said “terrified” her.
The woman also denied drinking or taking recreational drugs on the day of the incident, although she said she took a substance that was redacted from the report. The neighbor on whose porch the confrontation took place stated that she smelled alcohol on the alleged victim that day, and that the woman also was slurring her words and staggering.
Clausen, who also is president of the Clearlake Rotary Club, has been with the Clearlake Police Department for several years.
In December, as McClain was preparing to retire, the Clearlake City Council named Clausen, a lieutenant, interim chief. The vote was 4-1, with Spittler the lone dissenter, according to a report that came out of the closed session in which Clausen's appointment was discussed.
Clausen was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant in early 2007 by interim Police Chief Larry Todd.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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