State Senator (Artesia) Tony Mendoza.
By Brian Hews
State Senator Tony Medonza sent a statement to HMG-CN blasting yesterday’s article by the Sacramento Bee.
The Bee wrote: California Sen. Tony Mendoza repeatedly invited home a young woman who wanted a job and employs a district director with a felony record, according to several sources who confirmed reports to the Senate Rules Committee.
Mendoza fired three aides as allegations were reported to the committee. Senate officials late Thursday vehemently denied any connection.
Multiple sources told The Sacramento Bee that Mendoza, D-Artesia, invited the young woman back to his place to review resumes, including hers, on the night of a party at the nightclub Mix Downtown. The woman worked as a fellow in his office through a prestigious Sacramento State program that places graduates in legislative offices for 11 months.
“The Bee story yesterday is misleading and irresponsible,” said Mendoza.
“As I said in the story, I would never knowingly abuse my authority nor intentionally put an employee into an awkward or uncomfortable position. It’s not what I meant to communicate and it’s not who I am. If I ever communicated or mis-communicated anything that made an employee feel uncomfortable, I apologize.”
“To suggest that employees were terminated because of any complaint is an outrageous falsehood and runs completely counter to the facts.
The facts are these:
· I had no idea there was an issue, an allegation or a potential complaint at the time of the employee termination. No one had said a word to me about any of this. The employee terminations had been a long time coming and had nothing to do with these allegations, since there were no allegations.
· I only found out about the lone complaint from the terminated employee when the Bee inquired a couple days ago. It was completely news to me.
· My understanding is that the complaint was made only after the employee was terminated.
I provided all of this information to the Bee but sadly it chose clicks over facts.”
The article also cited that Mendoza had hired Ana Perez who lied to a grand jury to cover up campaign finance fraud in Commerce, sources told the Bee.
Mendoza defended the hiring of Perez, saying he believed in “second chances. ”
In a statement, Perez called her illegal acts a “huge mistake” and said she has “paid her dues to society. ”
She expressed gratitude to Mendoza and the Senate for hiring her. “No words can describe how remorseful I’ve been since – or how committed I am to serving the community that invested so much in me, ” she wrote.
