Drug case for Los Banos school board trustee under review

The case against a Los Banos school board member suspected of possessing methamphetamine remains undetermined, the Mariposa County district attorney said Monday.

“I’m waiting on one piece (of casework) before I can make a decision,” District Attorney Tom Cooke told the Sun-Star.

He has declined to comment on any specifics of the case.

Dominic J. Falasco, 49, was arrested around 1 a.m. April 3 in Merced after officers found an undisclosed amount of suspected methamphetamine in his possession, according to Merced police.

The case was referred to Cooke in Mariposa County to avoid a potential conflict of interest with the Merced County District Attorney’s Office.

Falasco, a board member for the Los Banos Unified School District and a veteran criminal defense attorney, did not respond to requests for comment.

In an April interview with the Sun-Star, Falasco denied wrongdoing and said police stopped him while he was helping a Dos Palos woman he described as a friend and possible client. Falasco said he’d taken the narcotics from Raylynn L. Wineland to destroy them.

Falasco said Wineland, 27, had sought his help to escape a dangerous situation.

According to Falasco, he drove to Dos Palos to pick her up, and they’d driven to Merced. Falasco said he asked Wineland to drive because it was late and he was tired.

A Merced police officer stopped Falasco’s truck about 1:15 a.m. on a “lighting violation.” Officers also had received a report of a suspected drunken driver in the area, in a vehicle they said matched the description of Falasco’s pickup truck, police said.

Falasco said he told police he’d “take responsibility” for the narcotics because the vehicle was his. But, Falasco said, he never claimed the drugs belonged to him.

Falasco has questioned why he was booked into jail instead of cited and released, which he said is the common practice since the passage of Proposition 47.

Cooke said he hopes to make a decision on whether to file charges against Falasco in about two weeks.

This story was originally published May 17, 2016 at 8:41 AM with the headline "Drug case for Los Banos school board trustee under review."