politician

A mental health diversion granted to a former Kern County politician is coming under fire from numerous California lawmakers and child welfare advocates, who say a repeatedly amended state law is allowing an accused child abuser to avoid prosecution and possible jail time.

Zack Scrivner, a former Kern County supervisor, was charged with felony child abuse in February after he was accused of inappropriately touching one of his children in 2024. But because of a Dec. 19 ruling by a judge, he will avoid a trial and instead be funneled into a mental health diversion program — an initiative aimed at helping defendants with mental health disorders get treatment instead of imprisonment for certain crimes.

While supporters say mental health diversions help certain defendants get needed mental health treatment, lawmakers in both parties have blasted the Scrivner decision and the legislative changes that led to it. Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano) issued a scathing statement, describing the ruling as an “Epstein loophole,” a reference to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I specialize in family and addiction medicine, so I know the value of mental health diversion … It was designed to help people get treatment and rehabilitation in appropriate cases, not to provide an escape hatch to sexually assault children,” she said. “This Epstein loophole needs to be closed.”

At the end of their 2018 legislative session, California lawmakers approved a number of legal reforms, many aimed at keeping homeless people out of jail. One of these altered what defendants could qualify for mental health diversions. The change specifically excluded people accused of crimes such as murder, rape and child sex crime but did not exclude those accused of child abuse. Then, in 2022, another amendment to the law directed courts to allow a diversion if a diagnosed mental health disorder played a significant role in the alleged crime unless there is “clear and convincing” evidence it wasn’t a motivating factor.

Since then, controversies have arisen over several judicial decisions. In 2024, a judge granted a mental health diversion to a Pasadena doctor accused of trying to kill his family by driving the family Tesla off a cliff with his wife and two children inside. In Sacramento County, Sheriff Jim Cooper and other officials have criticized a mental health diversion granted to a father arrested in connection with the death of 1-year-old “Baby A,” who had suffered from severe injuries while in her father’s custody.

Emergency personnel respond to a vehicle over the side of Highway 1 on Jan. 1, 2023, in San Mateo County. A Pasadena doctor, Dharmesh Patel, was charged that year with three counts of attempted murder in crashing the car over a cliff, injuring his two young children and his wife. A judge granted him a mental health diversion in 2024, allowing him to live with his parents while receiving treatment.

(Sgt. Brian Moore / Associated Press)

“People are becoming very skeptical of mental health treatment because it’s being used in ways nobody ever intended,” said Matthew Greco, deputy district attorney of San Diego County and author of the California Criminal Mental Health Handbook. The 2022 law change limited the discretion of judges — one reason the California District Attorneys Assn. opposed it, he said. Greco has since heard from judges across the state that they feel their hands are tied. In San Diego County, the number of mental health diversions granted has steadily risen since 2019.

The 2018 law establishing the program had good intentions, he said, but lacked proper legislative vetting.

“We know the central premise behind mental health diversion is that if we obtain mental health treatment for those that are mentally ill that are committing crimes, the public will be safer,” he said. “But we need to have both public safety and treatment.”

In Kern County, Scrivner has numerous political connections in the Republican Party and beyond. He served for 13 years as a county supervisor before resigning in August 2024. He also served on the Bakersfield City Council and had spent four years working for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Kern County Dist. Atty. Cynthia Zimmer is also the aunt of Scrivner, and before recusing herself from the case, she played a key role in alerting law enforcement to his actions.

At a news conference in April 2024, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said he received a call from Zimmer that Scrivner was armed and experiencing “some type of psychotic episode” at his Tehachapi home. Deputies responded and found that Scrivner had fought with his children, with one of them stabbing him in his torso amid allegations that he had sexually assaulted another of his children, Youngblood said. While Scrivner’s four minor children were at the house at the time, his wife, who had previously filed for divorce, was not.

According to Youngblood, detectives obtained a search warrant and ended up seizing 30 firearms, psychedelic mushrooms, electronic devices and possible evidence of sexual assault in the house.

Things got complicated at that point, given that Kern County’s district attorney was obligated to recuse herself and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office took over the case.

In February 2025, Bonta’s office charged Scrivner with two felony counts of possessing assault weapons and three felony counts of child abuse. The charges, however, did not include sexual assault, even though the state’s complaint said Scrivner had “consumed mind and/or mood altering drugs and substances, got into bed” with a child and inappropriately touched the child.

On Dec. 19, a Kern County Superior Court judge approved a motion filed by Scrivner’s attorney, H.A. Sala, to allow the former county supervisor to enter a mental health diversion program. Sala, who has not returned multiple requests for comment, presented the court with a medical diagnosis conducted by doctors that Scrivner had been suffering from mental health disorders, including alcohol-use disorder, depression and anxiety, according to a report in the Bakersfield Californian. Sala argued that a treatment program would be the best option for Scrivner, in keeping with the intent of the Legislature.

ln her ruling, Superior Court Judge Stephanie R. Childers sided with Sala, noting the state had “offered no alternative” to the medical diagnosis of Scrivner that had been submitted to the court, according to the Bakersfield Californian.

In response, the state attorney general’s office released a statement saying that it opposed the judge’s decision and “we are reviewing our options.” It added that the office filed charges that it believes the state “can prove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.” So far, the Kern County Superior Court has declined to release Scrivner’s attorney’s motion, stating it is confidential.

During Scrivner’s Dec. 19 court appearance, according to the Californian, Deputy Atty. Gen. Joe Penney stated that Scrivner “got into bed with the minor victim — while he had alcohol, Ambien, benzos (benzodiazepines) and cocaine metabolites in his system — and fondled her breast area and genital area for a period about 10 minutes while she was frozen in fear.”

State Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) is one of the lawmakers calling for reform of the program in light of Scrivner’s case. She questioned when the state justice system would prioritize vulnerable victims over “the monsters who harm them.”

“A program intended to promote treatment must never be allowed to erode accountability for the most serious and violent crimes against children,” she said in a statement online.

Several lawmakers have introduced bills to modify the mental health diversion law. In 2024, Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento) was unsuccessful in her attempt to exclude defendants from qualifying from the program if they had been charged with child abuse and endangerment, domestic violence that causes great bodily harm or human trafficking.

Krell, a former deputy attorney general, said cases that have stirred outrage seem to be appearing in just about every county, including in her district.

“We should ensure that people who are mentally ill are receiving treatment,” she said, but there has to be accountability when people break the law as well. Krell said she intends to try to submit the bill again. “We need to give courts discretion to make these determinations. We also need to make sure we’re keeping victims safe. There’s just too many examples where this has failed.”

Although some elected officials are seeking reforms to the program, Kern County organizer Flor Olvera said she thinks the focus should include whether Scrivner received preferential treatment.

“You can have a mental health diversion granted, but what is the justice system doing to hold people accountable?” she said. “When it’s people in these powerful positions, it does seem like the system moves differently for them.”

In a Dec. 20 statement, Bains said she sent a letter asking U.S. Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon and U.S. Atty. Eric Grant to investigate whether Scrivner violated federal civil rights statutes by leveraging his former status as an elected official.

“This is not justice, and this is not over,” she said.

In a Dec. 24 interview with radio host Ralph Bailey, Sheriff Youngblood said that deputies arrived at Scrivner’s home that day in 2024 and confirmed that the county supervisor was unarmed. Scrivner then got on the phone and asked the sheriff to send the deputies away.

“My response was, ‘no, they’re going to do what they have to do,’” he said. A deputy said there was more to investigate, and Youngblood supported it. Zimmer, the Kern County district attorney, did not ask for a favor, Youngblood said.

Yet questions remain as to why deputies did not arrest Scrivner immediately. Speaking to local media, Youngblood said he had no one who could arraign the supervisor within a limited time frame, but Kern County prosecutors dispute that. Late Wednesday, the sheriff’s office directed inquiries to the state attorney general’s office, after declining to respond to questions over the last week.

Joseph A. Kinzel, the county’s assistant district attorney, said in an email that because Scrivner was not arrested that night, there was no request from law enforcement that charges be filed. Kinzel said that the office immediately determined it would be inappropriate to get involved with the case, and that the office “did everything it should have to ensure that a conflict-free prosecution would occur.”

In the radio interview, Youngblood said that he believed the state attorney general’s office “didn’t do their job correctly” by letting Scrivner avoid a sex crime charge.

“I can only speak for the sheriff’s office, and I can tell you that the deputies that investigated that did absolutely the right thing,” he said. “I believe that the children were all on board and would have done exactly what the court asked them to do, and that is, tell the truth. So from my standpoint, this stinks.”

SACRAMENTO — A California lawmaker introduced a bill Monday to crack down on fake liens filed against politicians, court employees and businesses that can force victims to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees to clear their names and repair their credit.

The bill by Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) comes after a Times investigation in July found lien claims filed with the secretary of state’s office are used by antigovernment agitators, including so-called “sovereign citizens,” for conspiracy-laced demands and vendettas. The U.S. Justice Department and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service have called fake liens a form of “paper terrorism.”

“This isn’t an exotic or onerous fix,” Papan said Monday after the state Legislature returned to the Capitol to begin a new session. “The fact is that someone can do irreparable damage to someone’s reputation and their ability to have good credit. And we can certainly do better in California.”

Liens are recorded in state Uniform Commercial Code databases across the country, with the public filings intended to standardize interstate transactions and alert creditors about business debts and financial obligations.

The Times’ investigation found that state databases of UCC liens, which were designed to be straightforward and quick to file, are inherently vulnerable to abuse. A single false filing can claim an individual or business owes debts worth hundreds of millions or even trillions of dollars. Others flood victims with repeated filings that make it appear they are entangled in complex financial disputes.

In California, a lien recorded with the secretary of state costs $5 to file, but removing a fraudulent one from the public database requires a court order, which can cost thousands in attorney and court fees. The state does not notify a person when a lien names them as the debtor, allowing fake filings to remain in California’s public database for years before a victim discovers them. Many politicians and government employees learned from The Times that they had been targeted with spurious filings.

Under Assembly Bill 501, the secretary of state’s office would be required to notify individuals within 21 days if they are named as a debtor in a lien filing. The legislation also would delay court fees until the end of judicial proceedings.

In cases where the lien is found to be fraudulent, the bill would make the guilty party liable to the victim for three times the amount of court fees paid. The bill would also increase the maximum civil penalty for filing a fraudulent lien to $15,000, up from $5,000. California law already makes it a felony to knowingly file a fake lien.

“Victims of these fraudulent filings often have no idea they’ve been targeted until real harm is done,” Papan said. “That harm can look like wrecked credit, failed background checks, or failed mortgage applications while the people committing the fraud face relatively little risk or consequence.”

The National Assn. of Secretaries of State said the vast majority of UCC filings are legitimate. But, in a 2023 report, the association said that “fraudulent or bogus filings” were a widespread and persistent problem across the country, warning that they “can create serious financial difficulties for victims.”

One high-profile California public official who was unaware he had been named in a UCC claim until contacted by The Times said he was alarmed to find that the filing contained his home address. The Times identified hundreds of other UCC filings with no apparent legal basis that also listed the home addresses of government officials and prominent power-brokers, effectively turning the state’s public database into a doxing tool.

In the debt claims, individuals falsely allege government officials owe them money or property, in some cases claiming ownership of the victim’s home. Other fake filings target businesses with claims of being owed cash and cars. In some cases, individuals file dozens or hundreds of fake liens. Paid online classes associated with fringe antigovernment ideologies teach people how to record UCC liens, often promoting the filings as a way to pressure perceived adversaries or falsely claiming that the filings can erase debts.

Michael Rogers, a San Diego attorney who represents auto dealers targeted by fake filings, said AB 501 would “greatly curb some of the systemic abuses used by the sovereign citizen movement and others” who file unsupported or fraudulent lien notices.

Consumer credit expert John Ulzheimer said in July that liens can complicate a person’s ability to obtain a mortgage or a company’s chances of securing lines of credit. In some cases, he said, the filings can derail job applications for positions that require thorough background checks.

Papan said her bill would restore “balance and accountability” to the UCC system, ensuring it remains a trusted commercial tool while adding protections for Californians targeted by fraudulent filings.

“We can’t allow the Uniform Commercial Code to be used as a weapon,” Papan said. “The fact that these forms are being used to damage the integrity of commercial transactions is very troubling.”