Editor's note: On Nov. 23, 2015, Todd Bosnich was sentenced for obstructing justice after he admitted he created a phony email to make it appear DeMaio or his associates were threatening him. He also admitted to lying to the FBI about the email.
The man who accused Carl DeMaio of sexual harassment is the same person who provided confidential campaign documents to DeMaio’s opponent Scott Peters, according to newly unsealed court documents.
The newly unsealed search warrant affidavits, obtained by NBC 7 Investigates, show the Peters campaign held on to the controversial documents for four days before alerting the authorities.
Those campaign documents are described as “DeMaio’s media plan” in 211-pages of eight search warrant affidavits issued between the dates of June 13 through August 14.
DeMaio and Peters have been battling it out to serve California’s 52nd Congressional district. As of Friday night, Congressman Peters was leading Republican challenger DeMaio by 4,491 votes.
According to the court documents, Todd Bosnich gave Peters’ campaign manager, MaryAnne Pintar, printed proofs of the mailers from Carl DeMaio’s campaign and a CD containing a recording of his June interview with KFMB’s Mike Slater.
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Pintar told a detective that former Demaio campaign staffer -- Bosnich – gave her the DeMaio campaign documents and a CD, on June 5, according to the search warrants.
Pintar told police she took the documents home and copied them.
She gave the originals to her boss, Congressman Peters, the next day. Peters then gave those materials to his wife, Lynn Gorguze, according to the search warrants.
The Peters’ campaign kept the documents and the CD for “three more days," according to the search warrant affidavits.
It wasn’t until June 9 that the Peters’ campaign told police they had DeMaio’s campaign strategy documents. The search warrants detail a phone conversation between Pintar and a detective, where Pintar provides a play-by-play of how she obtained the documents from Bosnich.
The DeMaio campaign headquarters was broken into and vandalized May 28. Cords and cables were cut, water was poured over laptops and printers, computer screens were smashed in and one important item was taken: DeMaio’s campaign playbook.
On an October 17 episode of “Politically Speaking,” DeMaio confronted Peters about the book.
“And Mr. Peters, I just want to ask a very simple question. Did your campaign come into possession of our strategy book, all of our direct mail pieces in the last five months?” asked DeMaio.
Peters responded with: “In early June, information was forwarded to our campaign which we immediately turned over to the police.”
DeMaio pressed the issue, asking Peters why he did not let his opponent’s campaign know that he had seen DeMaio’s playbook all along. (The Peters campaign disputes the information provided by Bosnich should be considered a "playbook.")
“I’ve obviously never seen it,” said Peters. “We turned it directly over to the police within 24 hours of getting it because what was contained in it was potentially part of a criminal investigation.”
A Superior Court judge unsealed the more than 200 pages of documents Friday. The documents were part of a police investigation into the DeMaio campaign office break-in and Bosnich’s claims of sexual harassment.
The District Attorney and San Diego Police investigated the sexual harassment claims and the break-in but no charges were filed.
NBC 7 Investigates reached Pintar, who said she was confused about the dates because she was on vacation. She later said that when Peters said the information was turned over in 24-hours, he was referring to emails Pintar received that she immediately forwarded to the police.
Throughout the campaign, both candidates and Bosnich have made a variety of claims against each other. The interviews referred to in these search warrant affidavits do show that Bosnich and DeMaio have been consistent in their explanation of what happened. They did not change their stories, either to police or to reporters, in the final, especially bitter days, of this Congressional campaign.
Bosnich said everything that he gave to Pintar were items that he had been working on and had access to without breaking-in to DeMaio’s offices.
“If I had given Pintar information that only Carl had access to in this so-called “bible” or “playbook,” I’d be in jail right now,” Bosnich said, adding that he had worked on many of the mailers he provided to Pintar. “And that’s exactly why they didn’t prosecute me.”
In an official statement, Pintar said:
“Rep. Peters and I contacted the police chief within 24 hours of receiving initial information from Bosnich on May 29. I didn't meet with Bosnich until June 5 and that is when he gave me the documents. Peters and I both left town shortly after that on planned travel and the first time I spoke with the detective, I told him about what was given to me and we made it available for pick-up.”
On Saturday afternoon, Peters tweeted the following:
"@mapintar is a talented & high-integrity. Re disturbing news she thought only about going the right thing re poss victim and crime. She did."
"If I misstated the timeline it's on me not @mapintar. We asked for law enforcement, didn't comment for politics and helped cops. Still will."
Ed. Note: Pintar called NBC 7 after this initial story was published and asked that we change her statement. It originally said: “Rep. Peters and I contact the police chief within 24 hours to report the meeting with Bosnich. He and I both left town shortly after that on planned travel and the first time I spoke with the detective, I told him about what was given to me and we made it available for pick-up.”
