Family Eviction Trial Gets a Slow Start

The eviction trial of a Cabrillo Village family whose sons are accused of terrorizing the neighborhood as active gang participants got underway Friday--slowly.

First, the routine proceedings were delayed nearly two hours at the Simi Valley Courthouse. Then, only one of more than 30 witnesses was called to testify before Ventura County Court Commissioner Gary K. Barrett, acting as a pro tem judge, called a recess and postponed further action for another week.

Managers of Cabrillo Village, an area of federally subsidized housing in Ventura, rented a bus to take to the courthouse 28 mothers from the neighborhood who had been subpoenaed to testify against the Zizumbo family. The women were ushered into an empty courtroom when they arrived at 1:30 p.m. and sat there until Barrett sent them home about 5 p.m.

The same group of women, who were subpoenaed because they feared retribution if they testified voluntarily, were forced Thursday to spend eight hours waiting in the Ventura County Courthouse as Barrett, whose calendar was crowded, searched in vain for another available judge to hear the case.

All of the women, through a Spanish-speaking interpreter, declined comment outside the courtroom.

Housing officials have testified that Santiago and Francisca Zizumbo’s four sons are hard-core gang leaders who hold the enclosed neighborhood of 1,200 residents virtual hostages in their homes at night.

Cabrillo Village officials are using a clause in the Zizumbos’ rental agreement that calls for eviction if any occupants of the four-bedroom house disrupt the low-income housing cooperative.

The Zizumbo house is “a staging area for plotting violence, and weapons and ammunition have been found there,” housing attorney S. Blake Wade said in her brief opening statement Friday.

The family’s three attorneys declined to make opening statements, but have said that the parents have been unfairly targeted for the alleged behavior of their four sons. Furthermore, the defense contends, none of the allegations against the sons has been proved.

Cabrillo Village Housing Administrator Hal Slade was called as the trial’s first witness about 4 p.m., but his testimony was frequently interrupted by defense objections and he managed to say little by the time Barrett called a recess an hour later.