TV star defense lawyer looks at run for D.A. in Contra Costa

San Francisco Chronicle, By Matier & Ross - July 3, 2017

Attorney Michael Cardoza, right, with former
state drug agent Norman Wielsch in 2011.
Michael Cardoza, a high-powered defense attorney
and former prosecutor who has gained attention
over the years as a TV legal analyst, is weighing
a possible run to succeed disgraced former Contra
Costa County District Attorney Mark Peterson.

“I am giving it serious thought,” Cardoza told us
the other day after he was spotted at the Walnut
Creek Yacht Club restaurant with a potential supporter.

“I know this (D.A.’s office) needs leadership,
and I don’t believe it should come from inside,”
Cardoza said. “They are too in bed with the
people there, and don’t see all the real problems.”

Two prosecutors have already announced their
candidacies for Peterson’s old job — Deputy D.A.
Paul Graves and former Deputy D.A. Patrick Vanier
, who is now a prosecutor in Santa Clara County.

Peterson resigned June 14 after cutting a plea
deal with state prosecutors who had charged him
with 13 felonies connected to his use of $66,000
in campaign donations to pay for such personal
items as meals, gas, clothes, movie tickets, hotels and phone bills.

The plea deal allowed Peterson to plead no
contest to a single count of perjury for making
false statements on state campaign disclosure forms.

Doug McMaster, chief assistant district attorney,
is handling the office’s day-to-day operation
while the county Board of Supervisors takes
applications for Peterson’s replacement. Its goal
is to pick a replacement by mid-September.

“That person can choose to run along with other
candidates” for a four-year term in the June 2018
primary, said Supervisor Karen Mitchoff.

McMaster has made it clear that he is not running
and will not seeking the appointment. Graves and
Vanier haven’t disclosed whether they are
applying to the supervisors. They have until July 23 to decide.

Whoever gets the job will have some work to do in
bringing calm to the D.A.’s office. The Peterson
scandal came close on the heels of another case
that had divided the department for years, in
which a deputy D.A. was accused of raping a
junior colleague in 2008. The criminal case
against the deputy was eventually dropped and the
prosecutor was allowed to return to work two years ago.

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