The county supervisor campaign for Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, who is running against Chula Vista Mayor John McCann for the open supervisor seat, has filed a public records lawsuit against the city of Chula Vista for allegedly failing to turn over a letter McCann authored in support of a Chula Vista woman imprisoned for fraud.
Aguirre's campaign alleges Chula Vista violated the California Public Records Act for not fulfilling their request in time for a letter McCann wrote in support of Adriana Camberos, who was convicted of running a scheme that involved illegally re-labeling energy drink bottles and fraudulently selling knockoff versions of the drinks.
McCann's letter requested commutation of Camberos' 26-month prison sentence and President Donald Trump later commuted her sentence near the end of his first term, resulting in Camberos' release after she had served just over half of her sentence.
McCann has said he wrote the letter at the request of Camberos' brother, Andres, who attended the same high school as McCann.
Camberos and her brother later contributed funds towards McCann's mayoral campaign.
Federal prosecutors said that shortly after her release from prison, Camberos and her brother started up a new fraud scheme, resulting in another prosecution and their convictions last year. Camberos was sentenced in April to 14 months behind bars.
Aguirre and McCann are candidates for former Supervisor Nora Vargas' District 1 seat. Voting ahead of the July 1 special election has begun and a debate is planned for Tuesday night between the candidates, whose campaigns have traded cutting accusations over the past few months.
The Aguirre campaign has pointed to the campaign donations made in the wake of Camberos' commutation, while McCann's campaign says Aguirre owes property taxes related to an Imperial Beach condominium. McCann wrote in a social media post that this indicated Aguirre's ability to manage the county's budget should be called into question.
While a Chula Vista City Attorney's Office representative declined to comment on the lawsuit, stating "It is the city's policy not to comment on pending legal matters," McCann said, "This phony lawsuit is an attempt to hide the fact that Paloma Aguirre refused to pay her property taxes for over four years on her beach condo. Aguirre will raise your taxes, but she still won't pay her own, how can we trust her to manage San Diego County's $8 billion budget?"
Aguirre's campaign has said she has been diligent in repaying the funds owed. Her campaign consultant, Dan Rottenstreich, told Voice of San Diego that Aguirre and her husband come "from a working-class background" and missed payments, "like a lot of families struggling with rising costs."
Aguirre said in a statement following the lawsuit's announcement, "McCann helped get a convicted fraudster out of prison, she bankrolled his campaign, and now he's hiding the paper trail. That's not just unethical — it's a betrayal of the public's trust. Voters deserve to know the truth before they vote."
