Councilman Stephen Whitburn, running for re-election in November, no longer has a cloud hanging over his District 3 campaign in San Diego.
Nineteen months after being accused of not intervening at his Ninth Avenue home to protect a 23-year-old man from a sex assault, he’s been dropped from a lawsuit in downtown Superior Court.
Whitburn attorney Gil Cabrera said Tuesday that Oscar Rendon, the plaintiff, filed a motion around April 19 to dismiss Whitburn as a defendant.
Rendon in September 2022 sued former county Democratic leader Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, then 35, seeking damages for an alleged August 2021 rape, sodomy of an unconscious person and other offenses — a week after the county District Attorney’s Office opted not to charge him in the incident.
(Rodriguez-Kennedy sent a press release claiming he was “cleared of wrongdoing” 134 days after stepping down from his post as chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party.)
But Whitburn, a roommate of Rodriguez-Kennedy, also was named as a defendant by Rendon.
“Whitburn … witnessed Rendon in a state of great intoxication, that Whitburn knew, or should have known, that Kennedy was likely to assault Rendon if he did not intervene, e.g. because of past instances of sexual misconduct or domestic violence of which Whitburn was aware of, or should have been aware of, and that Whitburn left Kennedy alone with Rendon and took no steps to protect him,” said the original complaint.
Times of San Diego reached out Tuesday morning to Rendon attorney Dan Gilleon but hadn’t heard back after 12 hours. Whitburn didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But Whitburn lawyer Cabrera, a former San Diego Ethics Commission chair, said via email that he’s glad his client was finally dismissed from the case.
“I wish it would have happened after I first advised them that there was no viable claim against Councilmember Whitburn when they first filed the case,” he said. “Unfortunately, it required us to file a motion for summary judgment for them to agree with our view of the case.”
An April 19 hearing in the case to hear Whitburn’s request to be dropped from the suit was vacated — canceled.
“Instead of filing an opposition to our motion for summary judgment, Mr. Rendon dismissed his claims against Whitburn with prejudice (meaning they cannot be brought again),” Cabrera said.
In February, Whitburn detailed his memories from the time of the alleged assault — which Rodriguez-Kennedy says was a consensual interaction.
“In the 13 years I have known Mr. Rodriguez-Kennedy, at no point have I heard of, let alone witnessed, any incidents of sexual misconduct or domestic violence by or involving Mr. Rodriguez-Kennedy,” he said.
Rendon, former San Diego City College student body president, seeks special and general damages, punitive damages, attorneys fees and other “civil penalties allowable by law.”
His suit continues against Rodriguez-Kennedy. (But the case was transferred in mid-February from Judge Eddie Sturgeon to Judge Michael Smyth.)
A trial readiness conference is set for June 28 with a jury trial beginning at 8:30 a.m. July 12 in courtroom C-67 on the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice at 330 W. Broadway.