14 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY november 14-20, 2024 www.montereycountynow.com It was the dogs that had many residents on Cielo Vista, in the Monte Verde neighborhood of Monterey, on edge. Dogs belonging to Leslie Flores and his sons kept escaping from the yard and attacking other dogs from 2011 to 2018. The stories neighbors told in sworn statements are harrowing. In one instance in 2018, a woman’s puppy was mauled twice by a young mastiff, the second time needing extensive surgery after the woman and neighbors beat the mastiff with implements to try and get it to stop. The mastiff was euthanized. Flores was admonished or cited multiple times—in January 2019 he promised to keep his two mastiffs, Adrien and Capo, indoors or within an enclosure and muzzled out in public. The next year the mastiffs attacked a woman and her two dogs. Again, neighbors tried in vain to stop the mastiffs. The woman’s toy poodle was killed, the other dog suffered serious injuries and their owner was bitten. A Monterey County Superior Court judge determined in a civil hearing that Adrien and Capo were vicious and would be euthanized. Flores and his sons were told they could not own dogs or possess dogs on their properties for three years. Less than a year later, someone spied Flores in his driveway with a German shepherd puppy and reported it to police. The dogs are just one small part of Flores’ story. On Oct. 18, Flores, 59, pleaded no contest to felony and misdemeanor charges that include possession of a weapon, reckless evading of an officer, resisting an officer and assault likely to cause great bodily injury and others, stemming from events that have taken place over the last two-and-a-half years. He could face up to seven years and eight months in prison. Flores is currently in Monterey County Jail awaiting sentencing. Monterey County Deputy District Attorney Chris Puck says he’s prosecuted more serious cases but none have attracted community attention than this one. The DA’s office has been contacted by nervous neighbors, city officials and the Monterey Police Department urging the maximum sentence for Flores. In an unusually long pre-sentencing document, 160 pages, filed by Puck on Nov. 8, he uses the dogs as just one example of how Flores disregards laws and court orders. He also rebuts arguments by Flores that his issues are really due to drug addiction and what he needs is treatment, not prison. Puck’s argument to Judge Andrew Liu: This isn’t about drug dependency, it’s about flagrant disrespect for the law. “The last two years are not an anomaly. It’s not an exception to the rule. It’s who he is and there’s nothing that a residential drug treatment program can rehabilitate,” Puck says. As for the dogs, they’re relevant, Puck says, because “it shows a continued disregard of court orders, and someone got hurt because of it.” According to Monterey Police Chief David Hober in a letter to Liu, the MPD’s encounters with Flores go back as far as January 2002, when he was 36. Hober lists 48, but says there are more than 120 documented contacts with Flores in Monterey and over 60 with other law enforcement agencies. Many of the arrests Hober chronicles were for public intoxication, but they also include fighting in public, vandalism, trespassing, drug possession, driving on a suspended license and driving under the influence. “Flores’ behavior has instilled fear and concern in the community, with his criminal conduct and threatening behavior towards community members and Monterey police officers,” Hober wrote. Arrests, it should be noted, are not convictions. Puck stated to Liu that for every conviction, “there appear to be multiple cases dismissed as a condition of the plea.” After citing an example of how in one case Flores was convicted of one charge after a few others were dismissed as part of a global plea that encompasses others, a common practice, Puck called it “quite the Costco bulk discount that only recidivists enjoy.” Flores’ first felony conviction to which he pleaded no contest in October stemmed from an altercation on March 18, 2022 that he got into with a bouncer on the night of St. Patrick’s Day after being denied entry into a downtown Monterey bar. More arrests followed over two years. After he didn’t show up for court in February, he evaded arrest twice, losing Monterey officers as he sped through neighborhoods. They finally caught up with him at his house on Cielo Vista on July 3. He holed himself up inside the house and MPD called in other agencies for assistance. Around 30 officials responded from eight agencies; after a search of the house, they couldn’t find him. It turned out Flores was literally in a hole under the house. Officials knew he had a hiding place, but discovered Flores had tunneled beyond that, to a six-foot hole. Police used a chainsaw to extricate him and take him into custody. He’s been in Monterey County Jail ever since. Meanwhile, Flores has been on the City of Monterey’s radar for a different reason. He’s a landlord—he owns multiple properties reportedly inherited from his parents—who let one of his apartment complexes on Larkin Street fall into disrepair. According to a letter to Liu from Chief Building Official Lori Williamson, her team has initiated seven different code compliance cases encompassing problems like no heat, no hot water, clogged sewer lines, mold issues, unsafe wiring and more. Flores refused to do the work city officials required to come up to code, and in February, they began proceedings to put the property into receivership, which would allow the City to make repairs then place a lien on the property to be repaid when it sells in the future. The court named a receiver, who worked over months helping remaining tenants with relocation costs. Repair plans are in the works. Flores was scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, Nov. 15, but after Puck’s 160-page statement was filed with the court on Nov. 8, along with a 60-page probation report, Flores’ attorney, Lawrence Biegel, requested a continuance to give him time to respond. He’s looking for at least a couple of weeks to review the lengthy arguments. As Flores has done in the past, he’s asking to be placed in a residential drug treatment program for one year instead of prison. To that, Puck wrote in his filing: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Puck detailed how Flores didn’t show up in court in 2023, claiming to be in a program that turned out to be nonexistent. In January, he avoided jail by asking to be released to a drug program employee for transport to a Southern California facility. A self-identified employee turned out to be a tenant of Flores’—and not a real employee of the program. Even if Flores is sentenced to prison, he would probably only serve three years on the felony assault conviction, and then be eligible for parole, Puck says. Prosecutors blame Proposition 57, passed by voters in 2016, that allows parole for nonviolent felons. Flores’ remaining charges are considered nonviolent. Plea Dealing The law catches up with a Monterey man who awaits sentencing on the heels of a long record. By Pam Marino news Leslie Flores in Monterey County Superior Court on July 19, after his arrest on July 4 when police found him in a hole under his Monterey house. “Flores’ behavior has instilled fear and concern in the community.” Daniel Dreifuss
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