Wednesday, March 9, 2016
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Challengers Return Papers for Races Against Solorzano, Kaddo
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court judges Kathryn Solorzano and James Kaddo will face opposition on the June 7 primary ballot.
Deputy Public Defender Tami L. Warren said yesterday she had returned her nominating papers, setting up a contest with the judge whose courtroom she worked in until recently.
Warren will be running against Solorzano, a 2007 appointee of then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A graduate of UCLA and Loyola Law School, she was a deputy district attorney for 17 years prior to her appointment.
Warren was assigned to Solorzano’s courtroom when she filed her declaration of intent last month.
A third candidate who filed a DOI to run for that seat, San Fernando Valley sole practitioner Naser “Nas” Khoury, has also filed in three other seats. His campaign manager, Rohnda Ammouri, said yesterday that Khoury would likely not make up his mind as to which seat to file for until Friday, the last day to do so.
Khoury Not Decided
Khoury previously told the MetNews he was most likely to run for an open seat rather than against an incumbent.
Warren, who has not returned phone calls inquiring as to why she was running against Solorzano, said in an email yesterday:
“I believe I’m a very viable candidate for this position and I look forward to a fair, clean race. I have no desire to engage in any mudslinging. It’s not who I am.”
Warren, a graduate of Texas A&M University and the University of West Los Angeles School of Law, is a former president of Black Women Lawyers of Los Angeles and a former member of the State Bar Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation.
She said in her email that she had resigned from the commission “with great sadness” after being told by the State Bar’s general counsel that she “would not be able to run for Judge and remain on JNE.”
Solorzano has retained David Gould as her campaign consultant. Warren is known to have spoken to at least one campaign consultant, whom she did not retain.
Kaddo and sole practitioner/wine merchant Stepan W. Baghdassarian, who will appear on the ballot as an “Attorney at Law,” returned nominating papers to run for Kaddo’s seat. They were the only candidates to file DOIs in that race.
Kaddo’s consultant is Cerrell Associates, Inc. Baghdassarian told the MetNews he has not decided on a consultant.
Prosecutor Drops Out
In other news, Judge Ray Santana moved closer to reelection, as one potential opponent said he would not run, after another returned nominating documents for a different race.
Santana turned in his papers Monday, prompting Deputy District Attorney Fred Mesropi to say he was dropping out. Mesropi was one of four candidates who filed declarations of intent to run for Santana’s seat before the incumbent, who has reportedly been dealing with health issues, filed his DOI shortly before the deadline.
Mesropi said in an email:
“When I filed for the seat, it was never my intent to run against Judge Santana….I worked with him many years ago in Pasadena and I know him to be an honorable gentleman and I would never run against a qualified jurist such as Judge Santana.”
Of the other candidates who filed DOIs in that race, Deputy District Attorney Efrain Matthew Aceves returned nominating papers last month for the seat being left open by Judge Alan Rosenfield, and Superior Court Commissioner Cynthia Zuzga did the same on Monday. The last potential opponent for Santana, sole practitioner Eric Ibisi, did not return phone calls.
Ibisi, like Mesropi, did not file a DOI in any other seat.
Sole practitioner Michael Ribons is the only candidate besides Aceves and Zuzga to have returned nominating papers for the Rosenfield seat as of Monday.
Copyright 2016, Metropolitan News Company