Media Articles on Law Firm

Phillips Lied In Deposition, Workman Says

By Marcos Breton
The Sacramento Bee Final
Thursday, February 8, 1990

The sworn testimony of Wendell Phillips, President of the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs' Association, came under fire Wednesday from two men who may become key witnesses in a legal fight between the association and a retired Clarksburg couple.

Steve Schrader, a Sacramento electrician, said Phillips lied in his deposition last year when he said he didn't know the name of a contractor hired in 1982 to work on the association's former headquarters at 1515 30th St.

And in court records and statements to The Bee, Lee Guzy, an electrical expert once hired by Phillips, directly contradicted statements Phillips made regarding electrical problems in those offices.

Electrical problems in the association's former headquarters have been the focal point of a lawsuit between deputies and George and Gale Hamatani, retired farmers from Clarksburg.

The couple filed suit last year against the association after it refused to pay rent and moved out of the building. They are alleging breach of contract and abandonment.

Phillips continued to deny the allegations against him Wednesday and vowed to prove his case in court.

The increasingly bitter legal battle also has caused dissension among deputies themselves. Prompted by questions stemming from the lawsuit, 12 deputies last week asked the association to open its books from the last 10 years.

Phillips has been the leader of the union representing the 1,300 sheriff's employees since 1979.

Schrader, who owns Mid-Cal Electric Co., became involved in the lawsuit because he was hired in 1982 by contractor David Owen Bateman to do electrical work on the office.

Bateman, in turn, had been named by Phillips last week as the contractor hired for the job. Phillips said he was able to identify Bateman only after an in-house investigation.

Last year, Phillips was unable to remember Bateman's name, according to his sworn testimony in an arbitration hearing.

In an interview Sunday, Bateman tod The Bee that he suffered a "massive stroke" in 1983, and was unable to remember anything before that.

Bateman said he didn't know anything about the deputies' association job, and maintained that he couldn't recall who Wendell Phillips was.

Clement Kong, the lawyer for George and Gale Hamatani, said Bateman told his own private investigators, however, that Schrader did the electrical work on the 1982 job.

Kong alleges that faulty wiring commissioned by the deputies during or since 1982 was the cause of electrical problems that prompted the association to leave the building.

Phillips claims that the association moved because faulty wiring outside the building the responsibility of the Hamatanis had damaged the association's computers.

On Wednesday, Schrader questioned Phillips' assertions that he doesn't know Bateman and that he couldn't remember Batman's name during last year's deposition.

"I remember the job very clearly and I remember them being old drinking friends. They talked a lot about going to the Pig Bowl Game together and doing other things like that," Schrader said Wednesday.

Phillips' response? "I never met Owen Bateman until he was referred to us by the licensing agent. Anyone who maintains otherwise doesn't know what he is talking about."

Moreover, Schrader maintains that he did not install two electrical plugs that Kong claims are the source of electrical problems in the building and in Phillips computers.

If Schrader didn't install the plugs, and his clients didn't install the plugs, Kong asked, "Who did?"

Phillips said Schrader's insistence that he didn't install the faulty plugs was a "smoke screen" being put forward by Kong and the Hamatanis.

Along with Schrader, an electrical expert once hired by Phillips has contradicted statements that Phillips made during last year's deposition.

Phillips testified that power specialist Guzy had told him there was a problem with power surges coming from outside the building.

But Guzy said Wednesday that he had never determined where the power surges originated.

Phillips scoffed at the statement.

"That's beautiful. He told us what the problem was and how to fix it. We bought $5,000 of equipment from him he said would fix it and now he says he doesn't know where the line spikes (power surges) were coming from," Phillips added, "Never has so much been made of so little....This is a rent case but it's being treated like there was a murder of some socialite by a celebrity.

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