Tough-guy sheriff vows to clean up county

LAKEPORT, Calif. - Brawny and mustachioed, Francisco "Frank" Rivero strides down Main Street in this resort town, wearing his badge, gun and pine green uniform, headed for radio station KPFZ.

It's time for another hour of "Straight Talk With the Sheriff," when Rivero takes on his critics. At any given time, they include the chairman of the Lake County Board of Supervisors, the district attorney, motorcycle gangs, an army of marijuana growers and both local newspapers.

He's been called a thug, a liar, a bully, a cowboy, and the Cuban John Wayne for his swaggering brand of justice.

"I am one controversial character; I speak my mind," said Rivero. "I'm a rough character to deal with when you're screwing around. Aggressive law enforcement's taking place. We're going out, kicking down doors and taking people to jail in volume, which creates controversy."

Rivero, who started his career as a beat cop in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, shocked the Lake County establishment when he ran for sheriff in 2010 and beat 16-year incumbent Rod Mitchell. Rivero promised to clean up Lake County, which has earned a reputation as a pot-growers' paradise. "If you find a more corrupt place in California, I'll eat my hat," he declared.

Now the Cuban immigrant is the law in this largely white county of 64,500 residents.

"I'm a rare bird," Rivero said. "I'm probably the only immigrant elected sheriff in California."

"I don't know about that, but he may be the first convicted felon to be elected sheriff," retorted Rob Brown, the Stetson-wearing chairman of the Board of Supervisors and Rivero's chief antagonist.

Rivero, 53, acknowledges he tangled with the law as a young refugee in Miami but said he wasn't convicted of any felonies.

A maverick who walks tall and shoots from the lip, Rivero is locked in a nasty public feud over how to police this wide-open county of mountains, vineyards, and hot springs that has attracted outlaws and outliers - as well as thousands of tourists from Sacramento and the Bay Area.

Rivero says he has cut more than $1 million in waste from the Sheriff's Department budget and put an end to cops who abused their power under the "good ol' boys" network he swept out of office.

"They're trying their best to get rid of me, because I'm taking it on," he said while patrolling the county on a recent weekday. "There's rednecks and Klansmen up here [angry] at me. I've had death threats, and never leave the house without a gun."

His antagonists say his cavalier style has driven good cops away and needlessly put his deputies at risk.

"He's the worst thing that's ever happened to Lake County law enforcement," said Brown, 52, the bounty hunter and rancher who chairs the Board of Supervisors. "Not a single member of the deputies association supported him."

Rivero campaigned alongside District Attorney Don Anderson, who also promised to root out the old guard. But since they were elected, Anderson has conducted three investigations into Rivero's tactics. The two have clashed over a range of incidents, including Rivero's arrest of low-level pot dealers and the civil rights of motorcycle gangs.

"We've been butting heads on a lot of issues," Anderson said.

One such issue is the county's growing pot problem and whether Rivero has gone overboard with what some call heavy-handed tactics.

"The fact that I've taken a hard line on marijuana has generated controversy, because I've cut into the profits of people who were making a very handsome living," Rivero said.

Lake County is in some ways a throwback to California's frontier, when Black Bart, the stage-robbing poet, twice hijacked the Wells Fargo stage on the Kelseyville-Cloverdale line.

"It's the Wild West," said Brown.

He claims he tracks down about 600 bail jumpers a year: "About 99 percent of the time they came here because it's easy to hide, or their parents wanted to get them out of their hair so they bought cheap property and moved them up here from the Bay Area, L.A. and Sacramento."

Adventurers from New York, New Jersey, and Mexico have come to the county to grow and sell mountains of pot under the guise of California's medical marijuana law, Rivero said.

"These are opportunistic profiteers hiding behind the veil of legality and making a fortune," Rivero said. "With cheap property and good water sources, it's the perfect storm for bootleggers."

Pot growers "have brought violence to our county from all over the U.S.," said Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Samples, whose narcotics squad seized 200,000 plants last year.

Several people have been slain in recent years on the county's pot plantations. "Two members of the Misfits motorcycle gang hog-tied a pot grower with barbed wire and beat him to a bloody pulp over 10 plants," Samples said.

Brown said he discovered 7,500 pot plants on his ranch, and called deputies. He believes the growers retaliated by tearing down his fences and letting his herd of 80 bison run wild on the highway.

Brown calls county law enforcement "inadequate," but concedes Rivero's cracked down on pot growers.

"My message was to go after the drug dealers and the gangs - no breaks - and I've kept my promise," Rivero said.