Civil grand jury files accusation to remove Contra Costa County Assessor Gus Kramer

MARTINEZ — The Contra Costa Grand Jury took the rare move Wednesday of formally accusing County Assessor Gus Kramer of misconduct, starting a legal process that could end with Kramer’s removal from office.

Details of the civil accusation, filed by the grand jury Wednesday morning, were not immediately available. Last year, county supervisors asked the Civil Grand Jury to investigate Kramer.

Kramer, 68, was first elected assessor, a non-partisan office, in 1994.

Controversy has long dogged Kramer, a former Martinez City Clerk, throughout his career. They include questionable assessments, real estate deals and his use of gift deeds to acquire property in the county. In 2010, Kramer made 33 amendments to his state-required financial disclosure statements after this news organization reported he’d failed to report loans, business interests and property ownership in the county between 2002 and 2009.

Kramer then claimed that the reporting was retribution for an assessment increase on property the organization owned in Walnut Creek at the time. The organization’s editor at the time dismissed the claim as patently false.

Kramer’s attorney, Michael Rains, said he plans to respond to the accusation in court. Kramer’s first court appearance has been set for June 19.

This news organization reported last year that former District Attorney Mark Peterson — himself the subject of a Grand Jury accusation in 2017 — killed an investigation into Kramer’s real estate dealings in 2010 over the objections of his staff. Two lawyers said they were in the midst of probing Kramer when Peterson ordered them to stop

Kramer’s also been accused of sexual harassment by women in the assessors office.In 2009, the county reached a $1 million settlement with a woman on his staff who accused him of sexually harassing her in 2000.

Last year, a county investigation found “it was more likely than not’ Kramer made sexually harassing comments to two employees, including texting one of them, “I want you all to myself” and shared stories of encounters with other women, including buying one a sex toy.

County supervisors voted 4-0  to censure Kramer. He then sued the county, claiming it failed to turn over documents about the censure vote and violated open meeting laws. The suit remains open.

Just this week, the state Fair Political Practices Commission fined Kramer $5,500 for campaign finance violations.

Removal of municipal and county elected officials from office through a Grand Jury accusation alleging “corrupt or willful misconduct” is a rare process permitted by a 1943 state law. Peterson was facing that in 2017 for illegally spending $66,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. Before he could answer the accusation, he was charged by the state Department of Justice with perjury and embezzlement, accepted a probation sentence in a plea deal, and resigned.

Once a Civil Grand Jury votes to file an accusation against an elected official, the local district attorney files charges in Superior Court and a trail is held and a jury decides whether or not the official should be stripped their office, said William Larsen, a retired San Mateo and Santa Clara prosecutor who removed two pubic officials from office through the accusation process.

“It’s a hybrid criminal-civil” case,  he said. “In all respects it is analogues to a criminal proceeding except the penalty is removal from office,” Larsen said. It requires a unanimous jury verdict to remove the official, who can then appeal, he said.

“It’s rare,” Larsen said. He removed a San Mateo Unified School Board member in the seventies and then-Mountain View Mayor Mario Ambra in 2002 through this process. The school board member had asked a family member be a straw buyer of surplus vehicles from the district that went to the board member. Ambra had tried to influence city employees to block a development on land adjacent to property he owned.

Check back for updates on this developing story.