San Diego County taxpayers have now paid out $8 million, and counting, for sheriff’s deputy’s sexual misconduct
The disgraced former San Diego County sheriff’s deputy remains locked up in a Vista jail cell, with almost no hope of being released until sometime in December.
But while Richard Fischer pays his debt to society for groping, kissing or otherwise molesting more than a dozen women — many times while in uniform — San Diego County taxpayers are continuing to incur more legal costs.
In the six years since women began coming forward with allegations that they were sexually harassed by Fischer, the county has paid more than $7 million to settle at least 18 civil lawsuits filed by his victims.
This story is for subscribers
We offer subscribers exclusive access to our best journalism.
Thank you for your support.
Six other lawsuits remain pending in San Diego Superior Court, records show — legal disputes in which the county is paying to defend him.
County records show that attorney Joseph Kutyla, the private-sector lawyer representing Fischer, has been paid just under $1.1 million in public funds since the cases were filed.
Kutyla will continue to collect attorney’s fees until the last case is resolved.
Neither Kutyla nor San Diego County responded to questions about the payments and settlements related to the Fischer cases.
The attorney representing most of the 37-year-old former deputy’s victims, however, said county lawyers deliberately slow-walked resolutions in order to protect elected officials.
County is paying settlements, legal fees for former Deputy Richard Fischer; 8 more cases still unresolved
“These cases are the poster children for the government’s willingness to waste millions in taxpayer money by delaying settlement for the sole purpose of giving political cover to the powers that be,” San Diego attorney Dan Gilleon said.
“Since early 2018, we have attempted to resolve these cases for reasonable amounts,” he added.
Gilleon said the county’s strategy of dragging out settlement negotiations has revictimized his clients and their families, which in turn has made them less willing to settle and further driven up the legal costs.
“This mindset seems so embedded with the county, I think the only fix is to mandate the use of private-sector adjusters to make financially sound decisions, free of influence from politically minded officials,” Gilleon said.
In 2017, San Diego County began receiving legal claims — allegations that must be submitted before a public agency can be sued — accusing Fischer of kissing, groping and in some cases stalking women who had called 911 for help or had been pulled over on minor traffic violations.
As a sexual-misconduct case deepens within the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department — a 10th woman has come forward with a legal claim against the county — three alleged victims are publicly raising questions about why the accused lawman has not been arrested.
The complaints from unrelated women differed in their details but contained a thread of consistency: A deputy responding to a woman’s call or pulling over a female driver had made inappropriate sexual comments or groped her.
By November of that year, at least five women had leveled sexual misconduct allegations against Fischer. More complaints followed as the San Diego Union-Tribune and other news organizations picked up the story.
Yet another woman has come forward with sexual-misconduct allegations against a San Diego sheriff’s deputy, and this time the complainant accuses Deputy Richard Fischer of barging into her home to commit a sexual assault.
For months, the Sheriff’s Department said little more than that the case was under investigation and Fischer had been placed on administrative leave.
In February 2018, by which point 14 different women had filed sexual misconduct civil claims against the Sheriff’s Department, prosecutors formally charged Fischer with eight felonies and six misdemeanors.
He pleaded not guilty to all charges and was allowed to remain free on $100,000 bail.
“Mr. Fischer has a strong desire to go through this process to clear his name,” criminal defense attorney Richard Pinckard said during the court appearance.
Sheriff’s deputy arraigned on 14 charges related to sexual misconduct allegations, pleads not guilty
A veteran sheriff’s deputy was charged Thursday with eight felonies and six misdemeanors after a months-long investigation into sexual misconduct allegations by women he encountered on patrol.The criminal charges come after 14 women filed claims accusing Fischer of groping and other misconduct.A preliminary hearing was scheduled for May 2.A San Diego County sheriff’s deputy who was accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women over recent months turned himself in to law enforcement officials Thursday and was quickly arraigned on 14 criminal counts.
Within months, county lawyers began settling some of the civil cases filed by Fischer’s victims.
By May 2018, as more women were coming forward with additional allegations against the deputy, the county had resolved four cases for more than $900,000. As had become typical by then, county officials declined to comment on the payments.
The claims kept coming.
In July 2018, a Vista woman identified as T.D. said in a legal complaint that Fischer was among a group of deputies that responded to a 911 call from a group home.
After the emergency was resolved, the lawsuit asserted, Fischer returned to the woman’s apartment adjacent to the group home and hugged and groped her against her will. He showed up again in the months that followed — and on one occasion sexually assaulted her, the suit said.
“Inside, Fischer grabbed T.D. by one hand, pulled her into her bedroom” and forced oral sex on her, the complaint stated. “This rape occurred for about two minutes until Fischer suddenly stopped and said he had to leave.”
T.D. settled her case for $1.2 million earlier this month. Another defendant identified as K.H. agreed to resolve her lawsuit this month for $750,000.
In criminal court, prosecutors said that in at least eight encounters, Fischer “targeted women he had detained and/or arrested.” Some of them were in handcuffs when Fischer touched their breasts and buttocks, Deputy Dist. Atty. Annette Irving said in court.
“None of the women felt they had any choice in the matter but to submit and acquiesce to Fischer’s authority,” she said. Fischer was “banking on the notion that these victims would never tell.”
In 2019, on the day his trial was scheduled to begin, Fischer pleaded guilty to four felonies and three misdemeanors — all related to on-the-job claims of sexual misconduct but not a specific sex crime that would have required placement on a public sex-offender registry.
Defense attorney Gretchen von Helms said her client was “truly remorseful and sorry for his conduct.”
But Judge Daniel Goldstein was unconvinced and sentenced Fischer to 44 months in jail and 16 months under supervision.
“Unfortunately, you disgraced your uniform … And I don’t know if you get it. I can’t imagine what you were thinking,” the judge said. “It was just conduct that was abhorrent to the appropriate behavior of a law enforcement official.”
The criminal case took an unusual turn in 2020, when Fischer was quietly released from custody after just five months in jail.
According to a sheriff’s spokesperson at the time, jail officials were presented with a court order indicating that Fischer was due for release under a recalculation of his credits.
In late 2021, after prosecutors realized the credits had been miscalculated, the District Attorney’s Office confirmed that Fischer was returned to jail in November 2021.
But he was released again last April while a state appeals court examined the situation. The court denied Fischer’s appeal late last year, and he was again booked into custody in January.
According to the Sheriff’s Department, Fischer is now due to be released in December.
Under former Sheriff Bill Gore, who resigned in the middle of his term last year, the Sheriff’s Department saw a spate of allegations of sexual misconduct by deputies beyond Fischer.
Two years ago, former deputy Earle Yamamoto was convicted of 16 criminal counts, including forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and lewd acts on a child. The same year, former deputy Jaylen Fleer was sentenced to prison for committing illegal sex acts on a 14-year-old girl.
In 2019, then-deputy Juan Pascua was accused of propositioning a woman who was nine months pregnant while she was in sheriff’s custody.
The year before that, former deputy Timothy Wilson was caught on security video grabbing the backside of a teen girl at a fast-food restaurant.
Also in 2018, Assistant Sheriff Richard Miller was allowed to retire after twice being accused of sexual harassment.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
