Better stop buying your Frappuccinos and whatever other
drinks Starbucks brews–your hard-earned cash just might be going to the legal defense
of a former barista criminally convicted of statutory rape.
In a case currently winding through U.S. federal court in
SanTana, a former Starbucks worker is suing the company and one Timothy Horton
for civil damages regarding Horton's admitted statutory raping of the victim
when she was 16 and working at an Irvine Starbucks (guess which one!) and he
was 27 and her supervisor. Horton already served time for the crime, having
pled guilty earlier this year in Orange County Superior Court for unlawful sex with a minor.
Police reports and depositions have already established Horton's superiors
suspected his perversion, going so far as to transfer the victim to another
Starbucks after the victim's mother complained about Horton, yet never bothered
to report him to law enforcement.
Nevertheless, Starbucks is standing by a man they fired. In
an August 16 sworn declaration filed in court by plaintiff lawyer Vince Finaldi (part of
Manly N Stewart, the law firm best known for showing again and again how
the Catholic Diocese of Orange protected pedo-priests) stated that Horton's
lawyer, Eric Yuhl, admitted during a conference between the two sides that
Starbucks hired him to defend Horton and is paying all legal fees. And Horton admitted to as much in a June
30 deposition; when Finaldi asked how he found Yuhl, Horton replied, “Eric was
given to me by–referred” by Starbucks.
“What you're going to have to do since there's–for lack of a
better legal word, goofy stuff, give me the chance to object,” Yuhl instructed
his client.
Since when did Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown start whipping up lattes? Much more on this case in the coming days…
