Background: On December 6th, 201[3], a young woman named Mallory Dies was hit-and-run by Raymond Morua, who at the time was a valued staffer to Representative Lois Capps (D, California-24). Ms. Dies would later die of her injuries: Mr. Morua has since pled guilty to “gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and fleeing the scene of the crime.” As the link above shows, Ms. Dies’ parents are now suing not only Mr. Morua… but also his former employer Rep. Lois Capps,and the federal government in general. And the reasons for that lawsuit are the subjects of this post.
As people will probably remember, I wrote about this last week; as it turns out, local reporter Peter Lance (as noted in this diary here) had previously written extensively on this subject for the Santa-Barbara News Press. Said exposes included some extremely disturbing details about the case, including what very much appears to be a cover-up. I really do recommend that people go ahead and read through the entire thing, but I want to make sure that the following details are noted.
- It is established at this point that Raymond Morua had a history of both driving while intoxicated and hit-and-run incidents prior to his being hired by Congresswoman Capp in 2011. It is also established that Mr. Morua had spent ten days in County lockup while actually being an intern for Capp. This is relevant partially because of the civil suit, and partially because…
- It is reasonable to think that on the night in question Mr. Morua had previously attended a party as a representative of the Congresswoman. This is a very sore spot because, if true, it might make both the Congresswoman and the host of the party (the Santa Barbara Independent) liable for damages.
Now this is where it starts to get problematical for Congresswoman Capps. Continue reading A summation of Peter Lance’s expose of the Lois Capps (D, CA-24) / Raymond Morua scandal.