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Cerritos Resident Melinda Kimsey Fined $20,000 for Falsely Accusing Teacher of Pedophilia

Kimsey admitted in court documents that there was "no evidence to support my allegations." "It was two years of hell," said Larry Costa, the BUSD teacher whom Kimsey maliciously accused.

Kimsey admitted in court documents that there was “no evidence to support my allegations.” “It was two years of hell,” said Larry Costa, the BUSD teacher whom Kimsey maliciously accused.

 

Staff Report

Hews Media Group-Community News has obtained court documents that show Cerritos resident Melinda Kimsey, owner of a small publication that Cerritos Mayor Carol Chen and former Cerritos Mayor Bruce Barrows advocate and support, deliberately and maliciously lied in a lawsuit complaint when she falsely accused Larry Costa, a fellow male teacher at the Bellflower Unified School District (BUSD), of sexual harassment.

And in what can only be called an equally vicious and brutal fabrication, Kimsey also claimed that Costa was a pedophile.

In addition, Kimsey accused two principals at the school, Judy Rafferty and Jose Alarcon, of “knowing Costa had harassment tendencies” and for allowing the harassment to occur without taking action.

Lastly, and in an apparent effort to get the maximum monetary award, Kimsey included the BUSD in the lawsuit.

After it was revealed that she had no facts to support anything she alleged, Kimsey had to pay almost $20,000 to the BUSD for attorney’s fees.

Kimsey’s attorneys, Long Beach based Carlin and Buchsbaum, LLP, filed the sexually explicit 10-page complaint in Los Angeles County Superior Court, case number BC388465, on April 8, 2008.

Kimsey sued for monetary damages alleging, “a hostile work environment, harassment, sexual harassment, and failure to prevent and remedy a hostile work environment. ”

The shocking 2008 complaint contained extremely graphic sexual harassment descriptions of what Kimsey claimed, and later recanted, Costa said and did to her over a four-year span.

When contacted by HMG-CN Costa said, “We had been friends for a long time. Some time after her husband died, she wanted to have a relationship with me, but I said no, sometime after that is when she filed her lawsuit. ”

Costa went on, “In that time she told me about friends of hers who would file fabricated lawsuits and end up settling, and how she was going to do that. She had about 4-5 other lawsuits filed while mine was in court, she really loves money. ”

Kimsey stated in the complaint, later recanting, “beginning in 2004, Costa began to sexually harass (me) including routinely displaying a banana and two oranges to resemble a penis. ”

Kimsey claimed in the document that Costa said he, “openly described his love for pornography and watched it often at home, ‘getting his rocks off’ while watching pornographic movies.

She also said that Costa asked her if she was “getting (expletive referring to the ‘f’ word) at all lately. ”

In addition, in an extraordinarily malicious set of allegations, Kimsey accused Costa of being a pedophile.

She indicated that Costa told her “he had tendencies in the direction of pedophilia, and that he was attracted to some of the ‘very cute little girls’ in Kimsey’s class. ”

Kimsey bizarre fabrications went on alleging in the complaint that she “did not return Costa’s advances, and that Costa then became hostile towards (me), and as a result of (my) rejections, began calling (me) a whore, a f***ing whore, a bitch, and a f***ing bitch. ”

 

 

Page from the complaint filed by Kimsey, she later recanted everything.

Page from the complaint filed by Kimsey, she later recanted everything. Click to view larger image.

 

See complete complaint click here.

 

 

“I could not believe what she filed, ” said Costa, “she asked me to have a relationship with her and I said no. How can someone be so malicious towards another person? ”

Kimsey indicated she complained to former Principal Judy Rafferty and current Principal Jose Alarcon, in addition to officials at the BUSD about Costa, but “nothing was done to remedy the situation. ”

As a result, Kimsey claimed, but later recanted, that she began “to suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as physical injuries resulting from the emotional distress, incurring a substantial loss of earnings, medical expenses, future medical expenses, and attorney’s fees. ”

Kimsey also claimed, but later repudiated, that Rafferty and Alarcon had prior knowledge that Costa had a “predisposition to harass female coworkers” but did not investigate her complaints.

The complaint ended saying that, “all defendants committed the acts maliciously, fraudulently, and oppressively with the wrongful intention of injuring Kimsey from an improper and evil motives amounting to malice and in conscious disregard of (Kimsey’s) rights. ”

Kimsey Admits She Lied- 

The case dragged on in court for 17 months until September 1, 2009.

That is when a settlement conference between all parties took place one week prior to the beginning of the trial.

“The judge saw right through her, ” said Costa, “he knew she was lying about the whole thing. ”

During the conference, Kimsey shockingly admitted that she had no facts to support any allegation set forth in her complaint.

She later signed a settlement agreement confessing to exactly that.

“She told the judge she lied about everything, ” said Costa, “four days of depositions and she lied the entire time. ”

It appears that Kimsey was extremely fortunate that Costa or the BUSD did not want to file a lawsuit against her for malicious prosecution.

Kimsey agreed in the settlement that within ten days she would write a $100 personal check “made out to Larry Costa. ”“She was so motivated by money, I just wanted her to pay me something just to rub salt in the wound, ” said Costa, “she put me through hell. ”

Kimsey was also ordered to give Costa a dated, signed apology letter.

The letter stated, “It is with great sincerity that I regret filing my lawsuit against Larry Costa. In hindsight, I now realize that my lawsuit against Larry Costa should not have been filed, and there is no evidentiary basis to support my allegations against him. ”

 

Last page of the Motion to Enforce Settlement in favor of Larry Costa where Kimsey admitted she had no evidence to support her allegations.

Last page of the Motion to Enforce Settlement in favor of Larry Costa where Kimsey admitted she had no evidence to support her allegations.

 

 

The settlement should have signaled the end of the court battle and the sexually explicit, but factually unsupported, allegations that Kimsey leveled against an innocent 4th grade elementary school teacher and two principals, but it did not, and the saga took several more bizarre twists in the months to come.

Additional court documents filed seven months later on April 6, 2010 called for a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court because Kimsey had not yet fulfilled the simple settlement agreement made in September 2009.

Costa was forced to file a Notice of Motion and Motion to Enforce Settlement Agreement to compel Kimsey to issue the $100 personal check and a “correct” letter of apology as ordered.

According to the Motion, Kimsey and her attorneys blatantly defied the agreement, with Kimsey giving Costa $100 in cash, and not a personal check.

The apology letter was barely legible with several watermarks covering the words of the apology.

“Plaintiff and her counsel have intentionally designed the letter so as to signal to any reader that plaintiff is not sincere, not sorry, and that she does not believe a word of the letter and was coerced into writing it, ” said Costa’s counsel.

“On its’ face, it suggested a prank, a joke or a mockery. ”

See first Motion to Enforce Settlement click here.

After “two months of silence” Costa’s attorneys requested a meet and confer on Dec. 29 in advance of the filing of the Motion.

Kimsey’s counsel never responded and Costa was forced to file the Motion.

The hearing commenced on April 29, 2010 and the court ordered Kimsey to pay $19,961 to BUSD for court costs, provide the personal check and the correct letter of apology to Costa.

See second Motion click here.

“This was a two year nightmare for me, ” said Costa, “but through all that, my colleagues knew I was not capable of what Kimsey claimed, and their support got me through it. ”

Calls and emails into Ms. Kimsey went unreturned.

  • Whelment says:

    She was not a very good or likeable teacher, she was even worse as a realtor who worked for (Ret. councilperson) Grace Hu Remax of Cerritos. It’s a shame, her newspaper is only slanted towards Republican articles, it does not represent hardly any Democratic stories taking place in Cerritos, La Palma, Artesia. It’s like the Democrats stories do not read. She is only trying to land a husband, so she turned to printing stories, in order to erase memories of her husband who committed suicide in their Cerritos Garage. This homo story reminds me of the chaos around Ret Cerritos Councilperson Joseph Cho, who hated gays and lesbians and now resides in Fullerton Hills. Mayor Cho even kicked off one of his commissioners for being gay. Kimsey and Cho, must have come from the same womb.

  • HMG-CN says:

    From a Cerritos Resident

    After reading the article, I don’t know whether to laugh or to throw up. The laughable part is her business associates and her doing business with the city. Plus, using the name “Guardian” for her newspaper – it appears the name was a farce. Although, I think most people already knew that.

    If the city (of Cerritos) and other area political leaders don’t walk away from this lady that shows, at the very heart, what type of people they are not to condone this type of behavior.

    What it comes down to is that you can tell alot about a person by the company they keep both in their personal life and in their professional life.

    • Shadow Park says:

      Flashback of 2015 election, Cerritos Planning commissioner, Mr. Vo, who said multiple times on television during his time seeking Republican council person seat; he would never advertise in the Los Cerritos Community News, as he supported only the Gateway.

      Mr. Vo, lost the election, he was a crooked policeman from the city of Torrance, with a rap sheet a mile long, but he still resides as a Cerritos Planning Commissioner, under crooked councilperson Mrs. Carol Chen.

      What is wrong with Cerritos Councilperson Mark Pulido, Democrat, why can’t he ask for a recall of this planning commissioner, Mr Vo, since the Republicans aborted his candidate for Planning Commissioner Mr. Yokohama?

      Sounds like councilperson Mrs. Carol Chen, republican resident of Sunshine Park, Cerritos, appointed by dementia councilperson Crawely of Shadow Park, has used her real estate empire to be one of the principles of corrupt Gateway-Guardian newspaper. Crawley and Edwards were publicly scorned over the exchange of discolorful emails. Crooked Crawley appointed another crook to his cabinet, crooked Ms. Carol Chen ( pseudo neighbors of Crawley-Supervisor Ret. Don Knabe).

      Why has the rubber band commissioner, Mrs. Janett Beach, been on/ off editor staff, for the Gateway Guardian, still resides as Cerritos Fine Arts Commissioner? Read the commission guidelines, of conflict of interest, being a commissioner and reporting news too. Mrs. Beach is another republican puppet doormat, under ABCUSD/ Edwards/Carol Chen.

      Is there any good republicans left in the city, seems like for decades, the tarnished republicans have fallen from political grace?

  • 90701 says:

    Melinda Kimsey wasn’t she a commissioner under Grace Hu or some other bozo; well mayor Grace Hu lost her real estate license, because of bad business with the city of Cerritos redevelopment agency and affordable housing. Furthermore to say least, wasn’t Kimsey appointed to many school boards and part of the ABCUSD teachers unions. If so , she is disgusting. Is this the type of teachers which make up the teachers union in our area; and and and they want us to pass a school bond? Any school bond is now flushed down the toilet, as her actions must be universal among the ABC and Belflower school districts.

    Today city council, must remove both Beaches commissioners: CFAC +CPC, as they are both employees of Melinda Kimsey newspaper, Gateway Guardian. Wonder who are all the stock holders to said news rag, bet can be traced to the republican parties in the city.

    Few months ago, mayor George Ray and the new Cerritos City Clerk both wanted to advertise solely in the Gateway rags, so both must approve of this disgusting gay bashing and lies.

    Now wonder why Kimsey husband committed suicide in their garage.

    How many escrows went bad, during her sales with teachers unions, bet Grace Hu only wanted her for saleswoman for teachers and to combat trustee Olympia Chen real etate record?

  • Rancho says:

    Im brain dead to all of these words.

    Is Melinda Kimsey a woman or man, is she large like a man, as this photo appears to be a man, transformed in to female by hormone treatments? Did her husband have a gay affair with this victim she has abused or was the victim part of a bad real estate contract.

    This story reads like someone was out for revenge; or were some unions feeding in to this?

    Is her newspaper an underground edition, as this is the first have heard about said newspaper.

    Came home from work and saw this red ink headliner in my driveway, knew something awful attached to this red ink.

  • SFS says:

    Was her paper, spin-off from AOL.com, Cerritos-Artesia Patch, it read with that low life mentality. Gateway Guardian sure had limited audience, was it funded by Knabes empire , since it was republican editorial and Carol Chen’s Berkshire asian real-estate holdings.

    Why was she in Bellflower territory, is that part of the ABC, thought (B) was for Bloomfield and not BUSD.

  • Jonnie says:

    The Republican Party in the city of Cerritos never had a good name. This reads like the past history, Republicans runs and hide.

    1. Baptismal party where the sheriff’s were found guilty of battery & city paid huge judgement,

    2. Councilpersons Beanum & Rabbit driving under the influence and having an accident while attending a city field trip.

    3. Councilperson Grace Hu loosing license over fraud with the Affordable Housing.

    4. Council Person Barrow’s battery on a citizen .

    5. Council Person Edward-Crawley public scandal over emails.

    6. Councilperson Knabe questionable business/ financial interests with city trash contract.

    7. Is councilpersons: Grace Hu, Carol Chen, Barrows, George Ray all part of this paper, maybe they are equally guilty of putting this editor up to this.

  • Lifelong PTA Member says:

    Melinda Kimsey was licensed realtor, when all of this legal crap was hitting the public fan for the republicans in Cerritos. Where was our council? Republicans were quick to oust councilmember Mark Pulido choice for Commissioner, when the attorney chosen for commissioner, had not completed his state requirements.

    Said Commissioner has better report card compared to this Melinda , compared to how she hates gays and fabricates lies and lies.

    Where was our council persons, when Councilperson Korean Joseph Cho, threw commissioner out of office for being gay. Council woman Carol Chen hid under the desk and abstained from voting, what a wimp. Cho was afraid the KOREAN GANGS in Cerritos would kill his family for electing gay to his cabinet???? After office, Cho moved to Sunny Hills, Korean district in Fullerton, could not take the gay heat in Cerritos.

    License Type:
    SALESPERSON

    Name:
    Kimsey, Melinda Catherine

    Mailing Address:
    18721 GODINHO AVE, CERRITOS, CA 90703

    License ID:
    00708966

    Expiration Date:
    05/13/15

    License Status:
    EXPIRED

    Salesperson License Issued:
    05/14/79 (Unofficial — taken from secondary records)

    Former Name(s):
    NO FORMER NAMES

    Employing Broker:
    NO CURRENT EMPLOYING BROKER

    Comment:
    NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION

    NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS

    >>>> Public information request complete <<<<

  • BF Alter Clergy says:

    POLITICAL HISTORY repeating itself.

    Back in 90’S, ABC Trustees voted no; California gay rights for students. The bill passed, ABC lost. ABC Chinese wanted no gay rights for their students or protection. Trustees/ teachers said no, but loss. STATEWIDE GAY STUDENTS ARE PROTECTED.

    Elected official/Cerritos Junior College is now running as a gay mayor for Bellflower, one Bellflower council person resigned over poss.of gay candidate to BFCC; along with thumbs down on approval for gay Christian Church in the city of Bellflower.

    As always, former Ret.Mayor of Cerritos, resigned from Cerritos Junior College, because there was an elected gay and lesbian cabinet. It was too much pressure for the Republican council person of Cerritos.

    Local republicans in greater Dairy Valley are all bias towards: G&L, blacks, unions etc. Cerritos is the only city, which has (1) elected black councilperson to office in the past 60 yrs. Only few females have held the prestigious office of council & only 1 female city manager, holding assistant city manager and not allowed to sit with the city manager.

    Horrid/ disgusting, that political parties are partial to the residents whom voted them in to office. Kimsey-Hu-Barrows-Chen-Edwards-Crawley-Rabbit-Ray-Hughlett are all GOP/Republicans, which should of never held office with such deep hated seeds, for the other side of life. Only one country, we must all live on this planet in political harmony.

    Amen and God-bless USA.