Nutting faces 4 felonies; judge being sought to hear case

By Laura Cole, CBS-13

El Dorado County Supervisor Ray Nutting has been indicted by a grand jury on four felony counts, CBS13 has learned.

After more than a dozen witnesses’ testimony, jurors at a May closed-door hearing determined there was enough evidence to indict the El Dorado County supervisor.

Nutting’s family received or applied for $206,000 in taxpayer money for clearing brush and trimming trees on his own land.

In a March 27 interview with CBS13, Nutting said of the work, “Almost all of this is for my own labor.”

However, in a 2009 state invoice, Nutting said none of the money was for work that he performed himself.

Nutting eventually said it was a clerical error committed by Mark Stewart, an expert hired to oversee his project.

Under sworn testimony, Stewart admits it was his fault, saying “It should not have been a zero, and I think that was (sic) mistake where I had printed out.”

He goes on to say, “I didn’t catch that the zero was for my own labor on there.”

But Nutting still signed the invoice, and the grand jury found enough evidence to charge the supervisor with filing a false document.

Nutting’s also indicted for failing to report more than $120,000 on his state financial-disclosure forms, and voting to approve more than $600,000 in taxpayer money toward contracts to districts which had a role in awarding him state grants.

And under grand jury questioning, Nutting invoked his Fifth Amendment right and was excused.

But last week he issued a public statement saying, I fully intend to be acquitted in a court of law as quickly as possible, and then return to perform all the duties for which I was elected.”

Nutting still hasn’t been arraigned and doesn’t have a date for his arraignment, yet. This is because of the difficulty in finding a judge in the county who doesn’t have a potential conflict of interest with the supervisor. The trial will begin once the arraignment is complete.