Now what? Having accepted (landed?) a plea bargain that saves him from what would have surely been the most embarrassing trial of a San Francisco public figure in memory, the sheriff will likely find out soon if his career can be salvaged, not to mention his personal life. He says he intends to remain in office, but a lot depends on how his copping a guilty plea to false imprisonment of wife Eliana Lopez plays out over the near term. As AP’s Paul Elias points out, Mayor Ed Lee could call for his removal, however unlikely that may be.
Add: Good damage control begins at home, and Lopez’s attorney Paula Canny says this about the sheriff’s wife:
Eliana Lopez is looking forward to the return of normalcy in her life. Also, [she] wants everybody to know that she loves her husband Ross, she supports Ross, and that together they hope to raise the best child in the world, Theo."
More: That’ll have to wait just a bit, however. The court order barring Mirkarimi from going near his wife is, for now at least, still in effect.
Noted: Joe Eskenazi at SF Weekly, who sees the once-promising Mirkarimi as dead man walking, runs through the litany of ways that Team Mirkarimi shot itself in the foot (among other places).
