2021 saw more fatal car crashes in San Diego than any year since the city adopted its "Vision Zero" goal of ending all traffic deaths. Even in cases of recklessness or negligence, drivers who kill often face few serious consequences. Meanwhile, San Diego will soon be the first border county to offer free legal services to federal immigration detainees facing deportation. Plus, a new children’s book celebrating Black History has made it on the New York Times Best Seller list with illustrations from a San Diego County artist.
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A wrongful termination lawsuit brought by a former supervisor in the San Diego City Attorney’s Office took an unexpected turn Thursday, when the plaintiff publicly released a recording by a key witness saying she was lied to, bullied and forced to sign an untrue declaration by lawyers on the city’s defense team.
A 20-minute audio file was distributed by email Thursday morning to the entire City Council, City Attorney Mara Elliott and the private law firm she hired to defend the city in the civil case, Burke Williams Sorensen. The person who recorded the tape is Kathryn McGhee, a local woman who previously dated a lawyer in the City Attorney’s Office named Mark Skeels.
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The law firm representing the city of San Diego in a pair of high-profile legal disputes is the subject of a new allegation, that one of its partners threatened a witness in a civil case with personal and professional harm if he did not testify in the city’s favor.
Senior Chief Deputy City Attorney Mark Skeels said in sworn declarations filed this week that attorney William Price, of the Burke Williams Sorenson law firm, sought to influence how Skeels might testify in a lawsuit against his employer, the city of San Diego. The law firm is representing the city in the lawsuit.