Cerritos Mayor Pro Tem Chuong Vo Appoints Commissioner Who Falsely Accused Teacher of Pedophilia and Sexual Harassment

Cerritos Mayor pro tem Chuong Vo

OP/ED BY BRIAN HEWS • June 19, 2020

Cerritos Mayor pro tem Chuong Vo, who was elected this past March, has shocked area residents once again, following his battle to cut Cerritos school crossing guards with the appointment of Melinda Kimsey to Cerritos’ Economic Development Commission.

Hews Media Group reported in September 2016 that Kimsey, who was a teacher herself, falsely and maliciously accused a fourth grade teacher of pedophilia and “looking at very cute little girls,”  while also lying that the teacher sexually harassed her.

Melinda Kimsey

“She put me through two years of hell,” Bellflower Unified teacher Larry Costa told HMG, “I could not believe how malicious she was, it was brutal.”

Along with Costa, Kimsey falsely accused two principals at the school, Judy Rafferty and Jose Alarcon, saying that the two  “knew Costa had harassment tendencies” and  “allowed the harassment to occur without taking action.”

In this time of #metoo and disclosures of sexual harassment,  the appointment will have many asking why Vo would even consider Kimsey; a person who lied about being sexually harassed, falsely accused a teacher of pedophilia, and lied under oath in a court of law; all for monetary gain.

Making the appointment even more questionable, Vo is a Torrance Police Officer sworn to uphold the rule of law and bring criminals to justice.

Transparent California screenshot shwoing Vo’s employment with the Torrance Police.

Yet here is Vo, appointing Kimsey who dragged Costa, Rafferty, Alarcon and the BUSD through the mud for two years using a complaint that contained extremely graphic sexual harassment descriptions, all falsehoods, that would make Hustler Publisher Larry Flynt blush.

“Beginning in 2004,” Kimsey claimed,  “Costa began to sexually harass (me) including routinely displaying a banana and two oranges to resemble a penis. He openly described to me his love for pornographic movies and how he watched them often at home ‘getting his rocks off,’ and that Costa asked her if she was “getting fu**ed at all lately.”

See complete complaint click here.

Kimsey also accused Costa of being a pedophile saying, “Costa told me he was a pedophiliac, that he had tendencies in the direction of pedophilia, and that he was attracted to some of the ‘very cute little girls’ in [my] class.”

“All lies,” said Costa, “but once again she did not care, she was all in for the money. She told me about friends of hers who would file fabricated lawsuits and end up settling, and how she was going to do that. She had about 4-5 other lawsuits filed while mine was in court, she really loves money.”

Kimsey claimed the usual ailment list, “[I began] to suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as physical injuries resulting from the emotional distress, incurring a substantial loss of earnings, medical expenses, future medical expenses, and attorney’s fees. ”

The case dragged on in court for 17 months until September 1, 2009 when a settlement conference between all parties took place one week prior to the beginning of the trial.

During the conference, Kimsey admitted that she had no facts to support any allegations set forth in her complaint.

“The judge saw right through her, ” said Costa, “he knew she was lying about the whole thing. She told the judge she lied about everything, four days of depositions under oath and she lied the entire time.”

Kimsey was ordered to give Costa a dated, signed apology letter and a $100 check – Costa, the nice guy, refused to prosecute her.

The letter stated, “I now realize that my lawsuit against Larry Costa should not have been filed, and there is no evidentiary basis to support my allegations against him.”

She later signed a settlement agreement confessing to all the lies and paid a $20,000 fine.

All chronicled in print and online in 2016, in HMG-LCCN,  yet Vo, who receives HMG-LCCN at his home every week,  appointed Kimsey to the commission.

The settlement should have signaled the end of the court battle but Kimsey  continued to drag her feet and the saga took several more bizarre twists in the months to come.

Additional court documents filed seven months later called for a hearing because Kimsey had not submitted a correct apology letter or the check.

“Plaintiff and her counsel have intentionally designed the letter so as to signal to any reader that plaintiff is not sincere, not sorry, and that she does not believe a word of the letter and was coerced into writing it, ” said Costa’s counsel.

See first Motion to Enforce Settlement click here.

Finally on April 29, 2010 the court ordered Kimsey to pay $19,961 to BUSD for court costs, provide the personal check and the correct letter of apology to Costa.

See second Motion click here.

“This was a two year nightmare for me, ” said Costa, “but through all that, my colleagues knew I was not capable of what Kimsey claimed, and their support got me through it. ”

And Mayor pro tem Vo, with his appointment of Kimsey, signaled he could careless about Costa, Alarcon, and Rafferty or other victims of abuse.

Since his election, it was revealed that:

Vo took $7,500 from the Auto Square, then voted to give a $75,000 gift to one of the auto dealers in the form of rent deferral;

In a blatant political move, Police Officer Vo voted no to cut a deputy from the Cerritos Sheriff’s station (as proposed by the station captain) that would not have diminished police presence in Cerritos, the move would have saved the city $500,000;

Vo voted to cut the City’s crossing guard expense from the budget endangering kids who walk to school;

And now he ignores heinous fabricated accusations against other human beings in appointing an extremely questionable and untrustworthy person to a city commission.

If he ignores this kind of abuse by one of his commissioners, what else will he ignore as an elected official?

Who knows? Vo has done all this in less than four months….he still has 44 months to go.

Emails into Vo went unreturned.