Richard Luthmann and I were back for the forty-first edition of The Unknown.
We first talked current events, including Elon challenging Trump on the Big Beautiful Bill. This was before the huge blow-up, which we’ll cover next week.
We also detailed the latest evidence in the Diddy trial. Both of us agreed the prosecution’s case is not that strong, built on emotion rather than facts, and generally doesn’t meet the elements of the crimes Diddy is charged with.
Diddy may still be convicted, I argued, but only because the jury was enflamed by the endless parade of witnesses detailing his horrific acts throughout the years.
In the What the Hales segment approximately starting twenty-seven minutes in, we talked about the recent empty threat by Jeremy Hales against me.
Approximately an hour and five minutes in, we welcomed Julie Holburn to the show.
Julie continues to cover Orange County courts, where she also has her own child custody case.
The Grant case
I asked Julie about a child custody case we both covered: Evan Grant vs. Kara Grant.
Earlier in 2025, that case received a lot of attention.
The judge in the case, Judge Mary Kreber Varipapa, granted temporary custody to the paternal grandparents without taking testimony.
Judge Varipapa then closed a subsequent hearing, making the specious argument that there was HIPAA, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, protected testimony. Here’s what I said previously.
Judge Varipapa paid lip service to open courtrooms, before announcing that whatever was about to happen was guided by privacy and HIPAA, the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.
HIPAA, among other things, forbids doctors from sharing medical information with anyone besides the patient and anyone else who is authorized.
HIPAA did not seem to apply to a child custody hearing, but Judge Varipapa was the judge, and her word is final in the courtroom, including a virtual one.
I interviewed Julie in February about this case.
Since then, there has been near silence in the case. A check of the court docket shows that most of the orders are not publicly available.
The lack of transparence comes amid apparent flurry of activity, including ex-parte motions on both sides.
I got two recent orders. One was indecipherable.
The order had nothing checked.
Another order bars Kara from removing the children from the county.
Besides that, the case has largely gone into a black hole.
{Note: Orange County Superior Court charged $8.40 for each two-page order}
The Spitzer verdict
For a week and a half, Julie told us, she had been watching the civil case against Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer play out.
After the broadcast, the stunning verdict- awarding $3 million in damages- came down.
In a San Diego courtroom starting May 27, this reporter watched as Tracy Miller, a veteran Orange County prosecutor, recounted a campaign of harassment that drove her from a 25-year career. On June 5, 2025, a jury delivered a damning verdict: Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and his former deputy, Shawn Nelson, had retaliated against Miller, the highest-ranking woman in the DA’s office at the time, with malice. The award: $3 million in damages, including $1.5 million for emotional distress, plus $25,000 in punitive damages from Spitzer personally. “I was disgusted. Sad. Shamed,” Miller testified, describing Spitzer asking her, in front of colleagues, what size tampons she used, claiming it was for his daughter. Nelson, now an Orange County Superior Court judge, told her, “Todd wants you to be his binky when he needs you.”
The verdict, in Tracy Miller v. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer (Case No. 30-2022-01262015-CU-OE-CJC), exposed a toxic culture in the Orange County DA’s office, one that my reporting suggests mirrors a broader pattern of punishing women across the county’s legal system. From prosecutors to protective mothers in family court, women who challenge power face shaming, exclusion, and retaliation.
Given what Julie said she heard, the verdict was not surprising.
“Female subordinates were being sexually harassed by Gary Logalbo, I think was his last name. That was Todd Spitzer’s former best man at his wedding,” Julie told us.
“When women came forward to make reports of the sexual harassment, they were retaliated against. There were threats to write them up for reporting the harassment,” Julie said further.
“One of the deputy DA’s was a very fit person. One of her exercise routines was pole dancing, and Todd Spitzer apparently got a hold of that information, and played a video that she posted of exercise pole dancing, fully closed, and mocked her in an executive meeting.” Julie said also.
Julie said the Wendi Miller murder came up in the case.
In 2022, I interviewed Ann MaGuire and Gina Fischer of Wings for Justice. Miller started that organization.
Miller was murdered in 2019. Spitzer, according to testimony, made racially charged remarks during the course of prosecuting the case. The remarks violated the 2020 California Racial Justice Act.
Tracy Miller, no relation to Wendi Miller, was an assistant district attorney, and she reported the remarks. She was also retaliated against. Julie explained further in a follow up post.
Tracy Miller testified that Spitzer made racially biased comments during death penalty discussions in the Wendi Miller murder case, suggesting Black men date white women to elevate their status, violating the 2020 California Racial Justice Act. Ebrahim Baytieh, then a senior prosecutor and now a judge, documented this in a memo. Spitzer claimed he addressed cross-racial identification issues, but Tracy Miller said his initial comments and dismissal of those comments undermined case integrity.
A February 2024 appellate ruling (Case No. G062589) by Justice Kathleen E. O’Leary upheld Buggs’ conviction, noting Spitzer “remedied” the error by reassigning the case and forgoing the death penalty (Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2024). “Despite Spitzer’s reluctance to acknowledge his expressed racial bias, he took steps to remedy the harm,” O’Leary wrote.
Miller also alleged Spitzer’s unauthorized contact with Rafael Farias, a witness in the Buggs case that was also facing domestic violence charges, risked prosecution integrity by not disclosing the interaction to the defense.
Spitzer will face reelection in November 2026.
Post-script
Check out the fundraiser for Orange County.
Here are the previous articles in the series. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25. Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38, Part 39, Part 40, Part 41, Part 42, Part 43, Part 44, Part 45, Part 46, Part 47, Part 48, Part 49, Part 50, Part 51, Part 52, Part 53, Part 54, Part 55, Part 56, and Part 57.
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