EscondidoEscondido — The San Diego District Attorney’s Office plans to file a criminal complaint against Escondido Union School District Trustee Jose Fragozo, charging him with misrepresenting his place of residence to get elected, Fragozo’s attorney said Monday.
The attorney, Victor Manuel Torres, said Fragozo’s arraignment is set for 1:30 p.m. Thursday in Superior Court in Vista.
“I have been in touch with the DA’s office, and this is where we are at,” Torres said. He said he was notified about the charges by Deputy District Attorney Leon Schorr, who is heading the investigation into Fragozo.
Schorr declined to comment Monday. No charges against Fragozo were filed as of late Monday afternoon.
Fragozo has denied any criminal wrongdoing and said that the charges against him are untrue. In a statement released Monday, he said he’s being victimized for pointing out a host of problems in the elementary district.
A complaint over Fragozo’s residency was first filed with the Secretary of State’s Office in 2012, when Fragozo ran for a seat on the elementary school district board. That same year the district changed from electing board on an at-large basis to electing them by specific areas.
Court documents show the District Attorney’s Office has been looking into Fragozo’s residency since September. The investigation has focused on whether the 50-year-old Fragozo resides at an apartment at 305 South Maple St., which he listed as his address when he changed his voter registration form in July 2012, shortly before he announced his candidacy.
Fragozo also owns a four-bedroom, 3,600-square-foot home in the city at 28346 Crooked Oak Lane, in the Hidden Meadows neighborhood. He said he is separated from his wife and that she remains in the Hidden Meadows home while he lives at the South Maple Street apartment.
“I’m the only one who lives in that place,” Fragozo said.
The South Maple Street apartment is in Escondido’s Area 1, a district that is heavily Latino, while the Crooked Oak Lane home is in Area 5, a district that is less influenced by the Latino vote.
In the past three months, investigators with the DA’s Public Integrity Unit have obtained at least four separate search warrants for phone records, utility bills, and employment records for Fragozo, court records shows.
It is not illegal for an elected official to have more than one home, but California law says candidates have to live in the districts they seek to represent. The state Elections Code defines residence for voting purposes as a “domicile,” a home where one intends to remain and return to after an absence. An individual can have only one domicile.
The charges add to the tumult surrounding Fragozo’s service on the board. In December, he was hit with a temporary workplace violence restraining order after district s said they felt threatened by his behavior, which they described as loud and “bullying.”
Superintendent Luis Rankins-Ibarra, who filed for the temporary restraining order, said Monday it would inappropriate to weigh in on the actions being contemplated by the district attorney.
He disagreed with Fragozo’s assertion that he has been victimized.
“Mr. Fragozo needs to closely evaluate his own behavior before he accuses others of victimizing him,” Rankins-Ibarra said. “It is exactly this failure, on his part, to recognize his own behavior and the fear it has caused others that has compelled the district to seek judicial intervention.”
Joan Gardner, president of the elementary school district’s board of trustees, declined to comment. “It’s in the hands of the DA,” she said.
In his statement Monday, Fragozo called on Escondido Union officials to “stop wasting public resources on frivolous, unfounded judicial actions against him and instead, spend money and time improving the district’s consistently abysmal academic scores.”
Fragozo also said that only 31 percent of Escondido elementary students are proficient in English and 24 percent proficient in math.
“Our schools are severely underperforming and failing our English learners,” he said in his statement.
Since the temporary restraining order took effect on Dec. 2, Fragozo — the first Latino elected to the district’s board of trustees — has been barrred from attending board meetings.
Last week, Superior Court Judge Richard Whitney extended the order against Fragozo until Feb. 9, at which point the hearing will resume and Whitney could issue a ruling.
