PIs plead not guilty in Costa Mesa spying case; can keep firearms licenses

Two private investigators accused of conducting illegal surveillance on a pair of Costa Mesa city councilmen during the 2012 election season pleaded not guilty Friday to felony charges of conspiracy and false imprisonment.

The defendants, Christopher Lanzillo and Scott Impola, will be allowed to keep their state-issued licenses to carry firearms and batons as part of their jobs while they await trial, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled.

Lanzillo, 45, is licensed as a private investigator. Impola, 46, is licensed to run a private security patrol. Both are former Riverside police detectives.

The California attorney general’s office had asked that their professional licenses — which include their weapons authorizations — be suspended as a matter of public safety.

But defense lawyers argued that if Lanzillo and Impola were truly a danger, the attorney general’s office should have stepped in more than two years ago when local officials began investigating the pair in connection with an alleged plot to harass and intimidate council members Steve Mensinger and Jim Righeimer.

According to charges filed last year by the Orange County district attorney’s office, Lanzillo and Impola were working in 2012 for a law firm retained by the union representing Costa Mesa police officers.

During that time, the district attorney’s office alleges, the pair put a GPS tracking device on Mensinger’s car and called in a false report of driving under the influence against Righeimer, prompting a police officer to go to Righeimer’s home and administer a sobriety test that cleared him of any impairment.

Judge Kazuharu Makino said that more than two years after the alleged crimes, he saw no indication of “ongoing abuse” from Lanzillo and Impola and therefore denied the attorney general’s request to suspend their state licenses.

They are, however, required to stay away from Mensinger, Righeimer and Skosh Monahan’s, a restaurant owned by Councilman Gary Monahan where they allegedly began tailing the politicians.

The Costa Mesa Police Assn. and its former law firm, Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir, have not been charged in the case.

Though prosecutors say the union asked the firm to dig up dirt on the two councilmen, there’s no evidence that the police association knew of any illegal activity beforehand.

However, a civil action brought by Righeimer and Mensinger in 2013 names the police union and the law firm.

The lawsuit is in state appeals court after an Orange County judge declined to dismiss it. The union and the law firm argued that the suit was the councilmen’s attempt to quiet their political opponents.