Attorney: Charges Against Sheriff’s Captain Are ‘Crazy’

MURRIETA – For the 10th time in two years, a trial date was postponed today for a sheriff’s captain and his wife, who are accused of abusing her daughter — allegations that his attorney says are ”crazy.”

David and Christine Nordstrom could each face a year in jail if convicted of misdemeanor charges stemming from the alleged mistreatment of her teenage adopted daughter, identified in court documents as ”Jane Doe.”

David Nordstrom, 61, is charged with child endangerment and failure to report abuse or neglect of a child, and his 44-year-old wife is charged with abuse of a minor and false imprisonment.

David Nordstrom, a Riverside County law enforcement veteran, is an administrator at the county coroner’s office. Christine Nordstrom was a sheriff’s community services officer.

Trial proceedings were set to begin today in the defendants’ case. However, David Nordstrom’s attorney, Virginia Blumenthal, requested a postponement because she was in the middle of a trial. Superior Court Judge John Davis rescheduled the matter for Dec. 7.

Nine previous trial dates have been vacated at the request of the defendants’ attorneys — without objection from the District Attorney’s Office.

Christine Nordstrom is represented by Riverside-based attorney Tera Harden.

Blumenthal told City News Service today that she has no doubt about her client’s innocence.

”This case really should never have been filed. It’s crazy,” the attorney said. ”No crime occurred … My client had nothing to do with anything. That’s obvious. It’s not even his daughter. Neither of them should be facing charges.”

The Lake Elsinore couple were arrested in November 2008 based on allegations made by the alleged victim, then 15, and several of Christine Nordstrom’s friends.

Dina Watts, a longtime associate of the defendant, was the first to allege that the girl was being mistreated, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed by sheriff’s Investigator Gary Bowen.

Watts told Bowen that she had heard Christine calling her daughter a ”slut,” ”bitch” and ”whore,” and that during one phone conversation, the defendant admitted to Watts ”that she had … handcuffed Jane Doe and said she was going to leave her there until the end of her work shift.”

The witness said she also overheard Nordstrom respond to her daughter’s threats of suicide by telling her to ”do it at home so she would not be embarrassed if her coworkers found Jane Doe dead on the street,” according to the affidavit.

Court papers state that Jane Doe alleged her mother punched her in the mouth.

When the girl showed up at Elsinore High School with a bruised eye, a teacher asked what had happened, and the victim replied that her mother had hit her that morning, as well as other occasions, according to investigators.

Another witness, Patricia Wilson, whose brother was Christine Nordstrom’s first husband, alleged that the woman first called her daughter a ”little bitch” when she was 2 years old, shortly after adopting her.

According to Wilson, she once saw the defendant pick her daughter up by the hair and drag her 20 feet.