Supervisor Pine: Motion to Rescind Lifetime Achievement Award

NOTE: In case you missed the news -- ayres has been found Guilty.

According to several sources, Supervisor Dave Pine has placed a motion to rescind the January 2002 Lifetime Achievement Award in Psychiatry given to william hamilton ayres for his “tireless effort to improve the lives of children[…]”  on the County Board of Supervisor's Meeting agenda.  The rescission item is said to be appearing on the June 4, 2013 Council Meeting Agenda.

A newspaper article covering Pine’s motion appears in the Palo Alto Daily Post.

Supervisor Pine has for several years been compassionate to the families and friends of the victims of ayres; having met with parents over their concerns that prosecution delays seemed unreasonable and that urgency to convict seemed relaxed.

For quite some time, families and friends have seen ayres out in the community behaving competently while free on bail. When the prosecution seemed to believe ayres’ stories of dementia, and seemed to be ready to concede that ayres was not competent to defend himself, the group of families and friends hired private investigators to tail ayres to show that he was indeed acting in a competent fashion.  Supervisor Pine was made aware of these reports, and expressed concern to the District Attorney’s about the pending decision.

Pine and a reporter planned to attend the hearing the morning that the DA conceded ayres’ incompetence, and verified the time with the prosecution and the court calendar. When they showed up, they found that the hearing had already finished before the scheduled start time. The reporter from the San Mateo County Times said that the “Time of Ayres’ retrial hearing is suspicious.”

As the retrial was slated to get started back up, and families and friends wrote the Board asking for focus, Pine and the rest of the County Supervisors brought pressure to bear, clarifying for the District Attorney’s office the desire that the County had for strong and successful prosecution of the case; resulting in additional strength added to the prosecution bench, and re-invigorating the prosecution in finding strong witnesses.

On the Rescission:

After ayres changed his plea to “No Contest” and the Judge found him guilty of the charges against him, several communications were made to the Board of Supervisors from friends, families and victims like the ones below:

Board of Supervisors:

I am a victim of William Ayres, a psychiatrist who worked in and contracted with San Mateo County agencies for many years evaluating juveniles for court cases, and who recently (May 16th, 2013) was found guilty of 8 counts of child molestation with special circumstances. There are at least 45 KNOWN victims of this child molester, most of them out-of-statute for criminal prosecution. There are likely scores of other victims.

It is known that police and other county agencies received complaints about Ayres in 1987 and two in 1994.
On January 15, 2002 this body (The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors) approved:

Resolution (1945) honoring William H. Ayres, M.D. for his lifetime of achievement in the field of Psychiatry, service on the Children and Families First Commission, and for his tireless effort to improve the lives of children and adolescents (Supervisor Rich Gordon)

I now implore you, the current Board of Supervisors, that given William Ayres' May 13, 2013 admission that the facts of the criminal complaints against him are true and correct, to rescind the inappropriate Lifetime Achievement Award given to this child molester by the County of San Mateo.

I hope to see this item on a very near future Board Meeting Agenda.

I also hope you understand that I prefer to remain anonymous in my request.

Thank you for your time in considering this very important, and yet easily resolved matter.
-[initials redacted]

Dear All,

If I could put my 2 cents in, I am all for the rescinding of Ayres LA award. My best friends younger brother, JD, was also a victim of Ayres. The no contest plea and subsequent date of sentencing is a bittersweet victory for my friends family.

The August 6 sentencing date falls on what would have been JD's 50th birthday, and the following day will be the second anniversary of his suicide. There are a few other documented suicides of Ayres former patients, and there are surely others that we don't know about, considering he had hundreds of young boys under his so called care over the years.

This man is a monster of enormous proportions and should have been locked away decades ago. Many people in high places turned a blind eye to the complaints that came in over the years.

Finally, there is no doubt in my mind that Ayres will have a convenient medical or otherwise problem that will extend his sentencing date, or keep him out of jail altogether. He has 2 1/2 months to devise a way to fool the system yet again. If he ever ends up behind bars, it will be a huge surprise to me. He knows how to manipulate the process.

[initials redacted], my heart goes out to you.
My input, Jonathan Henry Huddleston

Dave Pine has been a compassionate County Supervisor, and his efforts are greatly appreciated. Pine has now submitted a motion, and hopefully, on June 4th, 2013 the Board of Supervisors will vote to enact the rescission of ayres’ Lifetime Achievement Award.


Update: There are now Editorial/Opinions from Michelle Durand and Michael G. Stogner in the San Mateo Daily Journal.