For most observers, the picture of the sensational, July 2 arrest of Santa Ana City Councilman Carlos Bustamante on a sticky glob of alarming sex crimes wasn't necessary revealing.
In the shot, a handcuffed Bustamante looks directly into the camera of a photographer as if he's angry or frustrated or desirous of additional taxpayer-funded ejaculation when he was taken into custody.
But the picture–taken after the Republican councilman ate lunch with Santa Ana City Manager Paul Walters–contains potent information.
And it's probably not good news for Bustamante, who is accused of forcing county employees to watch him masturbate at work.
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The law enforcement officer holding Bustamante's arm in the photo is Damon Tucker, a veteran investigator with the Orange County District Attorney's office.
With the assistance of several other superb DA investigators, Tucker took the lead in Bustamante's case.
That's bad news for the onetime up and coming Republican politician known to be a servant (slave?) to wealthy, Newport Beach real estate developer Mike Harrah.
Tucker–a former Irvine Police Department cop–is a low-key, media-resistant but excellent investigator not prone to mistakes.
Read about his prior work HERE.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.