A Summary of Some Recent Updates

It has been some time since new posts, but we have several within the last couple of weeks. Here is a summary of some of the newest developments, along with a couple of updates that weren't in the original new posts. 

Several NEW lawsuits related to San Mateo County's problem with allowing child molesters to operate within a variety of juvenile services within the county. 

(Link to original article below):

There are now some articles in the mainstream press relating to these cases, including the article from The Daily Journal which is linked in our original post below. That article focused mainly on the domeniconi related lawsuit.

There is a new article from San Francisco Chronicle (Warning: Paywall) (pdf) which focuses mainly on the ayres related lawsuit. The Chronicle article is behind a paywall. We have a pdf in the noted link.

Just a couple of comments from me about the Chronicle article:

DA Wagstaffe claims that he provided "extensive support to prosecutor McKowan" and yet, he himself was never seen anywhere near the proximity of the courtroom as the multiple cases dragged on and on. And on. And on. And on.   (etc...) Our understanding is that Wags makes appearances at almost every significant case.  

Some additional support was brought to bear AFTER a local politician with a sympathetic ear (Dave Pine) began to express interest, and even moreso after he showed up to an important public hearing which was surreptitiously held earlier than posted and behind closed doors. The hearing in question was the hearing in which the DA decided to concede that ayres was not competent to stand trial, and that they would NOT retry him.

Wagstaffe also defends McKowan in his response to the Chronicle, but he doesn't seem to mention that he struggled with her handling of the case, as is evidenced by the email chains about her failure to notify victims about ayres' medical parole hearing and even ayres' death.

Wagstaffe also failed to mention to The Chronicle that McKowan was both publicly reproved and also disciplined by the California State Bar, AND that Wagstaffe himself had suspended McKowan for 2 weeks without pay in 2012 during the Bar investigation. (Thanks to the commenter below for reminding me of this fact!) 

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Also in the article is a comment from San Mateo County spokes-hole Michelle Durand. Durand said that the county "is not named as a defendant" in the ayres related lawsuit, and while this is true, there is still apparently discovery related to investigating and naming specific agencies, and while it can be gleaned from reading the court filing what several of those agencies will be, it remains to be seen if the county itself will also be a named defendant. 

Michelle used to be a "reporter" for The Daily Journal and when she left to serve as spokes-hole for the county, she stated that she "spent nearly 14 years telling San Mateo County’s stories and this position is another opportunity to continue doing so."

I always felt that her reporting on the ayres case was indifferent and quite inconsistent in quality, and this is maybe because rather than telling THE story, she was always telling San Mateo County's story, as she said upon leaving The Daily Journal. 

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OTHER Recent updates on our blog:

While we scan for new articles / information periodically, occasionally either someone publishes older articles to the internet, where google eventually picks them up, or somehow they get jarred to the top of the google search results: 

For many years we have not found a peep anywhere about an ayres obituary, but finally an old one has popped up, published by Dick Shadoan in the Northern California Psychiatric Society's "Psychiatric Physician" 

Also of note: ayres was a past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and we have never found any commentary from them about the ayres case. We have just recently found a blog post from Psycritic addressing this avoidance even within the confines of the walls of the AACAP. Good read -- check it out.

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And finally, we did a few updates to the "About william ayres" page of this blog. 

We've updated the timeline and posted FOIA requested emails relating to the DA's failure to notify victims about ayres' medical parole hearings and death. 

We've also updated the same page with some information about the "doctors" who wrote letters pleading for cash to help ayres get out of his child molestation charges. 

Of note in this doctor's list update:

Tom Ciesla has received a letter of reprimand from the Medical Board of California for hinky prescription of Schedule IV controlled substances, and was forced to surrender his New York license of practice due to the California letter of reprimand.  (Go to the "About william ayres" page, in about the top third of the long post. We have PDF files with the letters included.)

Also if you hadn't seen it yet, about a year ago, rabid ayres supporter Etta Bryant croaked.

william hamilton ayres was arrested on April 5, 2007 on charges relating to his molestation of many young boys while he was alleging to provide psychiatric care to private patients as well as referrals for evaluation from the juvenile court system in San Mateo County. After years of  playing demented for the courts, ayres plead "No Contest" and was found guilty of all charges against him on May 16, 2013. ayres was sentenced to 8 years in prison on August 26, 2013. ayres was no longer under the conservatorship of his daughter Barbara Jett (née Ayres) of Sacramento, CA. 

ayres has had significant interaction over the years with local politicians on boards like the "Children and Families First Commission,"  including the DA who was serving when prosecution began Jim Fox and Assemblyman Rich Gordon. In fact, Gordon nominated ayres for a lifetime achievement award for his "Tireless effort to improve the lives of children." ayres has also been vocally supported during his criminal trial by local head-shrinkers like Bart Blinder, Etta Bryant, Mel Blaustein, Harry Coren, Tom Ciesla, Robert Kimmich, Larry Lurie, Maria Lymberis, Richard Shadoan, Captane Thomson, and Harold Wallach. ayres was past president of both the Northern California Regional Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (NCROCAP)  AND American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)

The convicted child molester died in prison on April 20, 2016.

Some Review and Cleanup

In reviewing and updating the "About william ayres" timeline/information page after recent posts,  I noticed that the parole and death timeline graphic was basically illegible to outside viewers and had a few typos. I've cleaned it up a bit, and posted a full sized graphic to look at.  I've also added a news article about DA Wagstaffe's alleged stance on Marcy's law, as well as posted the SOURCE documents (FOIA requests containing emails between Wagstaffe, Guidotti, McKowan, and others) that were used in developing the timeline.

You can follow the link above to see the current information on that page, but I've also copied the updated timeline section below:

Please also look at the two posts immediately below this one, as they contain new (February 2023) information -- about lawsuits against San Mateo County due to molestation in the juvenile justice system as well as a newly located obituary for ayres.

Footnote, July 29, 2017 (with updates March 2, 2023):

Here is a timeline showing when the DA knew about the Parole and ayres' death, as well as how long it took them to completely botch any kind of public announcements, AND discussions that they had about possibly getting in trouble if they didn't contact victims BEFORE the parole hearing. All bullet points on the timeline are based on press reports and FOIA copies of internal communications between various DA office staff and PD staff.

Note: as of March 2, 2023, to the best of my knowledge, there has NEVER been an OFFICIAL confirmation of death of ayres from San Mateo County. Articles in the papers had confirmation from the Solano County Coroner only.

Enjoy the shit-show that these incompetent morons seem to enjoy performing.
You'll need to download the image to see it full screen... it's a large image:

Download the timeline: Click Here!

Source Documents for much of this timeline:

A FOIA request for documents relating to ayres' medical parole hearing and death revealed a great deal of information about the mis-steps and blunders relating to the DA's interaction with victims. 

These documents include emails from prosecutor McKowan, DA Wagstaffe, Chief Deputy Karen Guidotti, Jim Fox, the department of corrections, Officer Decker, and others.

* It's clear that the DA is very "cozy" with the press, and that the press soft pedals these blunders. 

* It's clear that there was no urgency in the DA's office to deal with the victims in the ayres case. 

* It's clear that even though at the highest levels of the DA's office they knew that there were some performance issues that they had with McKowan, there was no real motivation from Wagstaffe or Guidotti to mentor, guide, or otherwise discipline for these embarrassing mistakes. This was an absolute shit-show.

Marsy's Law is a law that is supposed to make it easier for victims of crimes to get information about their case, including especially things like parole hearings, and release from incarceration. The law requires that victims request the updates. 

In 2013 WELL before these violations (many of us had officially requested updates prior to this)  DA Wagstaffe did an interview with KCBS (pdf) regarding Marsy's law, and he had this to say:

"We try to comply with it in every case that we can, whether or not there's a request," he explained. "It does not take a request for us to do it, let's try and make it happen in every case."

"Probably less than one percent of the cases where they're exercising their rights to be informed on things. It's for that reason we try to, as a matter of office policy, we try to follow its dictates even if they're(sic) isn't a request,"

Here are the FOIA requested documents (pdf) that we used for a large part of the timeline above. Gotta see it to believe it. 

Note that DA Wagstaffe was apparently admonished, but not prosecuted due to lack of "willful violation."  There's an article in the "California Superior Courts Report" blog about it.

william hamilton ayres was arrested on April 5, 2007 on charges relating to his molestation of many young boys while he was alleging to provide psychiatric care to private patients as well as referrals for evaluation from the juvenile court system in San Mateo County. After years of  playing demented for the courts, ayres plead "No Contest" and was found guilty of all charges against him on May 16, 2013. ayres was sentenced to 8 years in prison on August 26, 2013. ayres was no longer under the conservatorship of his daughter Barbara Jett (née Ayres) of Sacramento, CA. 

ayres has had significant interaction over the years with local politicians on boards like the "Children and Families First Commission,"  including the DA who was serving when prosecution began Jim Fox and Assemblyman Rich Gordon. In fact, Gordon nominated ayres for a lifetime achievement award for his "Tireless effort to improve the lives of children." ayres has also been vocally supported during his criminal trial by local head-shrinkers like Bart Blinder, Etta Bryant, Mel Blaustein, Harry Coren, Tom Ciesla, Robert Kimmich, Larry Lurie, Maria Lymberis, Richard Shadoan, Captane Thomson, and Harold Wallach. ayres was past president of both the Northern California Regional Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (NCROCAP)  AND American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)

The convicted child molester died in prison on April 20, 2016.