Lexin

This case is a residuum of the fiscal crisis that swept the City of San Diego (City) over the last decade. That crisis, arising from the City’s failure to fund its employee retirement system adequately, led to federal investigations of the City’s bond disclosures, suspension of the City’s credit rating, class action lawsuits against the City for underfunding, the mayor’s resignation, and amendments of the City’s charter to change the composition of the board overseeing the retirement system.

The six defendants below, Cathy Lexin, Mary Elizabeth Vattimo, Teresa Aja Webster, Sharon Kay Wilkinson, John Anthony Torres, and Ronald Lee Saathoff (collectively the Lexin defendants), were trustees of the board administering the City’s retirement system. They have been charged with felony violations of state conflict of interest statutes (Gov. Code, § 1090 et seq.) for allegedly voting to authorize an agreement allowing the City to limit funding of its retirement system in exchange for the City’s agreeing to provide increased pension benefits to City employees, including the Lexin defendants.

The Lexin defendants brought a Penal Code section 995 motion to set aside the…