San Benito County District Attorney John Sarsfield lounges behind his desk in Hollister in blue jeans, tennis shoes and a black T-shirt depicting Stewie, the Machiavellian baby from the animated television show Family Guy. Sarsfield—a former Monterey County district attorney who was defeated in an election in June, and will be leaving his office in six months—is explaining why his office will no longer be prosecuting victimless crimes like possession of marijuana or public drunkenness.

“The primary reason is because they’ve cut my staff by 33 percent and we were never adequately staffed to begin with,” Sarsfield says. “When I started in 2003 we averaged 1,500 cases a year, now we’re handling 2,500 a year with a decrease of staff and resources.”

Sarsfield consults a calculator. “That’s a 60 percent increase in cases, and we’ve had budget cuts.” he says. “Something had to give. Victimless crimes had to give. It’s as simple as that.”

But it’s not as simple as that.

Sarsfield’s decision is the most recent salvo in an increasingly vicious war of politics he has waged against what he calls the “corrupt Board of Supervisors who want to stop the prosecution of their friends.”

“[The Board] has no respect for the Constitution and laws,” Sarsfield says. “They’re acting like kings focused on their narrow self interests.”

Yet Supervisor Anthony Botelho says it’s Sarsfield’s obsession with personal vendettas, and an acute mismanagement of funds, that have led to his current political and financial quagmire.

“He lost and is in the red because he’s obsessed with prosecuting Los Valientes,” Botelho says.

“Los Valientes” is, according to Sarsfield, an anonymous group of men that has violated the civil rights of local elected officials and business owners. Sarsfield says this mysterious group operates through extortion and by filing false lawsuits.

The tale goes back three years. In 2003, attorney Mike Pekin, saying that he represented a group that called itself Los Valientes, filed a lawsuit against San Benito County  and former County Supervisor Richard Scagliotti. Pekin’s lawsuit accused Scagliotti of using his position on the Board to rezone a piece of ag property to build a nut plant. According to published reports, the lawsuit went on to say that Scagliotti stood to make $1.2 million in the deal.

Sarsfield subsequently filed a lawsuit against Pekin and his law firm, and also  Los Valientes. He says the lawsuit will incriminate several well-known community members, including Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz, 28th Assembly District candidate Ignacio Velazquez, and three Hollister residents.