San Bernardino County's embattled assessor breaks silence

10:00 PM PDT on Thursday, July 10, 2008
By DUANE W. GANG
The Press-Enterprise

San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus on Thursday spoke publicly for the first time about the arrest of his former top aide on charges of falsifying documents and destroying public records.

But Postmus declined to discuss the six felony charges filed against former Assistant Assessor Adam Aleman, and he shed little light on why he thinks his office has come under such intense scrutiny.

In addition to the arrest, Postmus' office has been hit by a critical grand jury report, and on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will publicly discuss what options they have under the county's charter to remove an elected official from his post.

Supervisors have not called for Postmus' removal, but the request for the discussion item came from the board's chairman in response to Aleman's arrest and the grand jury report.

In an interview from his downtown San Bernardino office, Postmus, a former county supervisor, said he has remained in contact with Aleman and has offered encouragement to his longtime friend.

Aleman, 25, was arrested June 30 on suspicion of altering public records, presenting false evidence to a county grand jury and destroying public records on a computer hard drive.

Aleman is out on bail, and his arraignment is set for July 30. He resigned from his post effective today and has declined to comment on the charges.

Aleman has long been close to Postmus, working on his campaigns and the county Republican Party. Postmus is to be a groomsman in Aleman's wedding, scheduled for December.

"I am trying to do what I would do for any other friend and give him a helping hand and mental encouragement," Postmus said. "I don't abandon my friends just because they are going through a tough time."

But Postmus said he could not discuss the specific accusations against Aleman.

"I heard rumors," he said of the possible criminal wrongdoing. "I can't get into the investigation."

He said investigators interviewed him, and he is fully cooperating with authorities on the case involving Aleman.

In its report released last week, the grand jury criticized the operations of Postmus' office, concluding that top staff members were hired without the proper experience and that political activity took place using county resources, which is contrary to county policy and state law.

The grand jury reviewed thousands of e-mails as part of its investigation and found some included "instructions to move campaign monies from one campaign fund to another."

Some of those e-mails were written by Mike Richman, a consultant Postmus hired last year.

In the interview, Postmus said Richman should never have had a county e-mail address and he has taken steps to ensure future contractors are not given access to county e-mail. He said he is working to put in place other recommendations from the grand jury.

"The grand jury did a very thorough job," he said.

Among its recommendations, the grand jury said the assessor's office should put in place firewalls to block political e-mails, require competitive bidding for consulting contracts and revise the office's tuition-reimbursement policy.

Postmus said no one in the office should be running his campaign or anyone else's during working hours.

"They have to be extra careful and do walk a fine line," he said.

Postmus declined to comment on why he thinks Board of Supervisors Chairman Paul Biane initiated a complaint with prosecutors about possible political activity going on in his department on county time.

Biane's involvement became public last week in the affidavit prosecutors used to obtain a search warrant for an April 10 raid on the assessor's office.

Biane said Tuesday that when he suspected an assessor's staff member was using county resources for political activity, he had the county counsel turn over the information to the district attorney's public integrity unit.

"I did this because it was the right thing to do," Biane said.

Postmus said he has spoken with Biane and still considers him a friend but disagrees with Biane's decision.

"I am not going to get into a verbal dispute with the chairman," he said. "There was another motivation, but I am not going to get into it. We had a very positive conversation, and I am going to leave it at that."

Matt Brown, Biane's chief of staff, confirmed late Thursday that Biane and Postmus have spoken privately.