Reverge Anselmo and Former Sheriff Tom Bosenko Use Recall for Personal Revenge

Reverge Anselmo as seen in the RW&B docuseries.

Reverge Anselmo is out for revenge. The Connecticut-based son-of-a-billionaire believes he was jilted by Shasta County a decade ago, after his efforts to establish a restaurant, ranch and winery near Shingletown ran afoul of local zoning ordinance provisions enforced by the Department of Resource Management.

Beginning in 2020, when he donated an unheard of $100,000 to right-wing nut job and serial liar Patrick Jones’s successful campaign for District 4 supervisor, Anselmo has set out to destroy Shasta County’s public institutions and remake the county in his own image.

Anselmo’s latest salvo is a $50,000 donation to the Recall Shasta/Shasta County General Purpose Committee last month, according to the Registrar of Voters. A private donor from Pacifica kicked in another $30,000. So far, the two organizations have raised approximately $180,000 for the recall effort.

The two organizations, along with Red, White and Blueprint, a docuseries co-produced by Carlos “Blood in the Streets” Zapata, have targeted Shasta County District 1 Supervisor Joe Chimenti, District 2 Supervisor Leonard Moty and District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert for recall.

The three conservative Republicans allegedly kowtowed to the whims of Gov. Gavin Newsom during the COVID-19 pandemic, one of many “Big Lies” told by the recallers.

Anselmo told a local TV station that he doesn’t remember how much he has donated to RW&B. RW&B claims it doesn’t have to report campaign donations because it’s not a political campaign. In reality, there’s no distinguishing RW&B from Recall Shasta and the Shasta County General Purpose Committee.

They share the same mission, the same people and drink QAnon Kool-Aid from the same pitcher of disinformation. All three organizations are being investigated by the state Fair Political Practices Commission for alleged financial improprieties.

Aided and abetted by District 4 Supervisor Jones and District 5 Supervisor Les Baugh, these groups combined form a death cult dedicated to preventing Shasta County from taking collective action to stop the spread of novel coronavirus currently raging through the county like wildfire.

The blood of every person who has died from COVID-19 since last August, when de facto death cult leader Zapata first called for violence if the county didn’t follow his whims, is on all of their hands. That’s more than 200 lives lost and counting.

It’s not clear if Anselmo is on board the crazy train with the likes of Zapata, Vladislav Davidzon and Elissa McEuen.

But make no mistake, Anselmo couldn’t care less about Shasta County residents, including the braindead zombies participating in the recall death cult.

In an early episode of RW&B, from the comfort of his posh Connecticut mansion, Anselmo tells director and former choirboy Jeremy Edwardson that he’ll return to Shasta County if the entire Department of Resource Management is abolished.

Anselmo is still hurting from losing the multiple lawsuits he filed against Shasta County, thus his $50,000 donation to Recall Shasta/General Purpose Committee.

Anselmo has a score to settle. He’s out for revenge.

Former Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko.

Former Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko and the Case of the Withdrawn Double-Dip

Reverge Anselmo isn’t the only past public figure seeking to settle scores with Shasta County. Former Sheriff Tom Bosenko, who somewhat mysteriously retired from office in late 2019, three years before his elected term was up, is back, speaking through his good friend and proxy District 5 Supervisor Les Baugh.

It happened in early May at a Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting designed to shame and humiliate Supervisor Moty as the RW&B cameras whirred away in the chamber.

District 2 Shasta County Supervisor Leonard Moty.

Earlier this year, the Shasta County Grand Jury charged Moty with “misfeasance” during the Carr Fire in 2018 for taking time out on official tours of his devastated district to occasionally refuel the gas generator at his own home. The Grand Jury charged the supervisor with “misfeasance” because it couldn’t pin an actual crime on him, and it felt compelled to charge him with something.

The charge stunk then, and it stinks now.

For starters, anyone who’s had to depend on a generator to get through fire season will find nothing unusual about Moty’s actions, taken three years ago during the height of the worst natural disaster ever to strike Shasta County. It’s what most of us would do, given the opportunity.

Secondly, the game was rigged by Bosenko and Baugh, who outdid themselves at the board of supervisors meeting where the board voted 4-1 to censure Moty for the made-up crime. It was difficult to say whose undies were in more of a bunch; Baugh’s or Bosenko’s in absentia, as they expressed their certainty of Moty’s evil doing.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this is purely 100 percent malfeasance of office, which by the way, the Government Code cites as possible imprisonment or banishment for lifetime from office,” Baugh lied, according to the Record Searchlight. The Grand Jury charged Moty with misfeasance, not malfeasance, as Baugh well knows.

Supervisors Patrick Jones and Les Baugh share a computer screen after they breached unpermitted board chambers in January.

Baugh could barely contain his excitement as he recited former Sheriff Bosenko’s letter to the board.

“Moty’s actions and behavior were unethical, immoral, and as the grand jury found, misfeasance of his elected position a serious finding. He used county resources for his own personal gain,” said Baugh, quoting Bosenko’s letter breathlessly.

From Les Baugh’s Facebook page.

In another falsehood that’s been spread by the RW&B docuseries, as well as Bosenko’s letter to the board, the former sheriff claims he was afraid of Moty because he controlled the purse strings to the SCSO’s budget. According to RW&B’s most recent episode, Bosenko’s fear of Moty goes back to 2006, when Moty was RPD chief and Bosenko was the newly elected sheriff.

It goes without saying that as RPD chief, Moty had zero power over Sheriff Bosenko. Is it really believable that the rotund constitutionalist gun nut, former Sheriff Bosenko, is scared of skinny old Leonard Moty, who hasn’t been a cop for more than a decade?

Or is there a more plausible explanation for Bosenko’s obvious animosity toward the supervisor?

According to multiple anonymous sources who collectively have decades of experience in local public service, there is a more plausible explanation.

According to these sources, former Sheriff Bosenko, after being elected to a fourth term in 2018, attempted to retire as a captain in the Sheriff’s Office shortly before his inauguration, even though he hadn’t served in the capacity of an appointed public official for a dozen years.

His plan was to collect both his retirement salary as an appointed official and his salary as an elected sheriff, a frowned-upon but not necessarily illegal practice known as “double-dipping” that would have boosted Bosenko’s annual earnings to above $300,000.

But according to my sources, members of the Board of Supervisors and other county administration officials discovered Bosenko was double-dipping and notified him of that fact. Bosenko withdrew his “appointed official” retirement bid, costing him more than $10,000 per month in income, after he was found out.

My sources speculate that Bosenko retired two years early because his sweetheart retirement deal was quashed.

It’s not the first time Bosenko has been caught with his hand in the county’s cookie jar. Bosenko allegedly pulled off the same stunt before, collecting unearned “appointed official” longevity benefits along with Shasta County Treasure Lori Scott, to the tune of $40,000 and $32,000 respectively in 2016.

Asked to return the money to the county’s coffers by the board of supervisors, including Moty, Bosenko and Scott allegedly refused.

I contacted Sheriff Bosenko to get his response to these anonymous allegations. So far, he has not responded.

Clear Window Movement: Just Another Sacramento Carpetbagger

Clear Window Movement’s homepage.

Infused with fresh cash from Anselmo and others, Shasta County’s recall movement has turned to airing on local TV and cable channels a slickly produced commercial featuring slow motion horseback riding and patriotic flag waving.

The commercial, produced by RW&B producer Mountain Top Studios, prompts viewers to log into the RW&B’s docuseries on YouTube. The advertisement features a disclaimer saying, “Paid for by the Clear Window Movement.”

CWM turns out to be an AstroTurf organization operated by nonprofit attorney Mark Alcorn from his Citrus Heights office in suburban Sacramento. Here’s CWM’s mission, according to its website:

“The mission of the Clear Window Movement is to pull back the curtain and expose corruption by elected or appointed officials and to fight the abuse of power. To promote this mission, the CWM conducts research and engages in public education to endure elected officials are free from corruption, misfeasance and self-dealing and to inform the public when occurs.” [my italics]

There’s that word again: misfeasance. A quick trip to the CWM website reveals the group is dedicated to smearing District 2 Supervisor Leonard Moty for alleged “misfeasance” during the Carr Fire back in 2018. The only “news” on the website is in regard to that trumped up claim.

It seems necessary to further examine this so-called charge of misfeasance.

Nobody complained about Moty filling up his generator at the time he was doing it, during the Carr Fire back in 2018, including Bosenko and then undersheriff Eric Magrini, both of whom presumably testified to the Grand Jury. As we’ve seen, Bosenko has reason to dislike Moty, calling any such testimony into question.

Wear a mask, go to Cuba. Post on John Day’s Facebook page.

The complaint wasn’t filed until late last year by John Day, a retired RN/paramedic and Vietnam veteran whose Facebook page says he lives in Anderson. That’s in Baugh’s district, not Moty’s.

Day is a former Anderson City Council Member. He’s the father of Casey Day, the former Anderson Police Department sergeant who was appointed the Chief at Fortuna PD about 18 months ago, and officer Nick Day of the RPD.

Day’s Facebook posts, which describe those who disagree with him politically as communists who hate their country, demonstrate which side of the political divide he leans toward: the far, far right.

He’s apparently still friendly with the Anderson Police Department and former Shasta County Sheriff Eric Magrini, who was also interviewed by the Grand Jury. There are frequent posts on Day’s page featuring the thin blue line flag and motif.

When Moty apologized after the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to censure him in May, Day managed to sound quite outraged, as if the incident had happened that day instead of three years ago in a district he doesn’t even live in.

“I see we received a watered-down apology,” Day said, according to the Record Searchlight. “‘We the people’ get that? We knew it would be watered down. I’m sure that you will claim that you were just the hero by checking out other people’s homes. No, Leonard, you’re not the hero.”

Is it just a coincidence that the politically connected Day lives in Baugh’s district and exhibits the same right-wing fervor as his supervisor? Does former Sheriff Bosenko’s aborted attempt to double-dip and collect retirement money and his sheriff’s pay at the same time point to another explanation for his alleged fear of Moty?

It’s doubly ironic that RW&B, which claims to abhor inefficient, wasteful spending by public officials, has embraced Bosenko as the type of public official it will support.

What does it all mean? There are some things I’ve been told by my anonymous sources that I can’t report, but the gist of it is there’s trouble brewing within the rank-and-file of our local law enforcement agencies. This trouble comes at a time when Carlos Zapata is openly calling on police officers to join his death cult—or face death themselves.

“If you’re a police officer, you’ll have to choose sides soon,” he said in a recent Instagram post. “It’s not a political fight anymore, it’s a basic right or wrong. No longer will “just following orders” be an excuse, just as it wasn’t during the Nazi SS trials.”
“You’ll have to choose between loyalty to a chain of command that abandoned you & throws you under the bus at every political turn, or to your teammates, family and COUNTRY.”

Pure, unadulterated fascism.

Zapata is openly calling for law enforcement officers to betray their leadership and their oath to serve and protect the public—or face retribution at the hands of his mob. I thought this might be of some concern to RPD Chief Bill Schueller and newly minted Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson, but so far, neither law enforcement official has replied to my inquiry.

At any rate, if people like Reverge Anselmo and former Sheriff Tom Bosenko are just settling old scores and are not true believers in the recall death cult, it makes very little difference. As the attempt to destroy Shasta County plays out, it’s going to get uglier and meaner from now on.

Hang on to your hats.

Carlos Zapata calls on cops to join death cult or be killed.