Santa Clara Politico Chris Stampolis' Dirty Laundry Gets a Public Airing
By Carolyn Schuk
Santa Clara politico Chris Stampolis is in the media spotlight this week, but not because of his role as a super-delegate to the Democratic national convention.
It's because the gossip blog-zine TMZ got hold of a 2005 recording of a 911 call about an incident in which the 42 year-old Stampolis is alleged to have physically and verbally assaulted the manager of a Los Angeles storage unit company in a dispute over whether Stampolis, then President of the California Democratic Council, was properly authorized to open the organization's storage unit.
After the LA City Attorney's office declined to prosecute the case, Robinson, filed a civil suit in 2006 against Stampolis for compensatory and punitive damages. In June, an arbitrator awarded Robinson, $35,000 in damages, which will be confirmed by court order after a hearing slated for October.
On August 26, the story was picked up by the San Jose Revealed blog (www.sanjoserevealed.com) and KLIV radio.
This is not Stampolis' first brush with the law. In 2006 he was charged by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office with election law violations connected with the closely fought 2002 Santa Clara mayoral race. The case was subsequently dismissed. Stampolis is currently running for re-election as a West Valley-Mission Community College District Trustee.
Carolyn Schuk can be reached at cschuk@earthlink.net.
