The beginning of the end for SLO County Supervisor Adam Hill

August 12, 2024

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a four-part series regarding the history of former San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Adam Hill based largely on statements and interviews released as part of a federal criminal trial regarding corruption, bribery, and fraud. Read part-one: “Adam Hill’s tortuous journey to San Luis Obispo County.” Read part-two: “Adam Hill’s widow recounts his hunger for money, women.” Read part-three: “Bribery, fraud and threats mar Hill’s financial plans.”

By KAREN VELIE

While San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Adam Hill raked in extra money from a pair of developers involved in more than a dozen projects they valued at over $300 million, he lived a life of luxury with travel in private jets, box seats at major sporting events and an enviable night life.

With Hill on the payroll, Ryan Wright (also known as Ryan Petetit) and John Belsher’s PB Companies easily obtained building permits, as well as meetings with city and county staff and officials. Belsher and Hill devised a plan to pay Hill through San Luis Consulting, a limited liability company Belsher formed and later turned over to Hill.

While investigating allegations of fraud against Belsher and Wright, CalCoastNews reporters discovered Hill was working for the developers, and wrote a series of articles in 2015 about the relationship.

After learning he was a target in a criminal investigation, in 2020 Wright hired investigator Heidi Alonzo to interview Hill’s wife Dee Torres-Hill and produce a report to help Wright avoid a conviction.

Torres-Hill describes how she and Hill socialized with Wright and how much they both liked him. She blames CalCoastNews and Belsher for ending Hill’s paid gig.

“In 2015, Cal Coast News reported on Hill’s consulting business,” according to Torres Hill’s interview. “When he initially filed with the Secretary of State for his consulting business, Belsher’s address was used on Hill’s form because Belsher filled out the form as an attorney. Hill’s filing was noticed because it had Hill’s name and Belsher’s address. Belsher said it was a mistake and corrected it.”

In the first California Secretary of State filing for San Luis Consulting in July 10, 2014, Belsher was listed as both the organizer and the agent. While reviewing evidence from the developers’ trash in 2015, reporters discovered a crumpled, yellow Post-it-note: “Put San Luis Consulting LLC in Adam Hill’s name.” A search of the state website confirmed Belsher had transferred San Luis Consulting LLC into Hill’s name on Feb. 2, 2015.

“Hill stopped consulting for PB Companies because he got scared due to CalCoastNews disparaging him,” according to Torres-Hill’s interview. “Hill was a different person by 2016. He was a shell of his former self. He was a terrified, depressed, paranoid person by this time. Hill hid his feelings with anger or jokes.”

During this time, Hill ramped up his attacks on the media, targeting KVEC radio host Dave Congalton and CalCoastNews reporters. After Congalton refused to abide by Hill’s demands to bar CalCoastNews reporters from his show, the radio host received more than 20 email threats from Sal Krill, an alias.

“You still f****** dogs like velie or 4-legged kinds? we pray for Charlotte’s soul in this time of transition,” according to a July 20, 2016 email. “May she survive the horror that is you, that has always been you and that came out for real when you began f******* karen velie and giving b****** to dan blackburn. you have only begun to pay, congalton.”

A day later, salkrill12@gmail.com sent another email making more vulgar attacks.

“Congalton Show(s) his bare ass! Don’t worry, Dave! Even a D-list local celebrity with three chins can get laid by a vulnerable person who wants to pretend you are important! And when Velie doesn’t want you to pluck her mustache and Blackburn doesn’t need your finger up his ***, you can pleasure **** **** who is known to enjoy killing puppies after sex! Dave? F*** you!”

San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow then opened a criminal investigation into the threats, which determined the emails originated from Hill and Torres-Hill’s home.

Investigators questioned Hill and Torres-Hill; both denied they sent the emails. Attorney Don Ernst, representing the couple, told prosecutors that if the district attorney filed charges, he would argue his clients’ IP address had been hacked.

Charges were never filed. A few weeks after they were interviewed, Hill and Torres-Hill separated, blaming the media for their marital woes.

“I believe Velie and her associates (including but not limited to known political opponents of mine including our very partisan district attorney) continued to create a false image of me as some sort of local Al Capone,” Torres-Hill said.

FBI agents raided Hill’s home and his office at the County Building on March 11, 2020. Several hours later, Hill was rushed to the hospital because of a suicide attempt.

“The FBI mostly talked about the PB Companies case, and a little about the Dayspring case,” according to Torres-Hill’s interview. “They told Hill that he was going to jail for the PB Companies case and the Helios Dayspring case. Hill told the FBI that if they wanted to charge him, they should go ahead and do it.”

After being separated for four years, and in the process of a divorce, Torres-Hill went to the hospital to reconnect with Hill. She called attorney Robert Sanger and asked him to represent Hill. Sanger also represented convicted murdered Paul Flores.

“Even though she and Hill were in the middle of a divorce and the divorce paperwork could have been signed any day, Torres called Sanger for Hill because she wanted to help him,” according to the Torres-Hill interview. “Torres and Sanger had an agreement that Torres would be involved in everything that happened in Hill’s case. Then, Torres found out that Sanger was sending Hill emails about how much trouble Hill was in, without including Torres.”

Sanger informed the FBI that Hill was going to spend 30 days in a psychiatric hospital.

“While he was in the hospital, the FBI made Hill sign a tolling agreement to give them 60 more days for them to dig up dirt on Hill and Torres target letters,” Torres-Hill said.

Tolling agreements, however, allow a suspect to avoid arrest by allowing prosecutors to waive statutes of limitations. The agreement, signed by Sanger on July 15, 2020, “tolled statutes of limitations and related defenses for the time period of July 10, 2020, through Jan. 15, 2021.”

At the time, Hill was dating his legislative assistant Nicole Nix.

Hill and Nix began dating in 2017. Then in early 2019, Hill terminated his then-legislative assistant and hired Nix at more than $100,000 a year in pay and benefits.

While Nix dated Hill, her parents applied for a cannabis cultivation permit in Santa Margarita, which sailed through the permitting process becoming the county’s first legal cannabis farm.

According to a former coworker of Nix, federal investigators asked her about drugs she provided Hill and videos Hill posted online of the two of them. Shortly afterwards, on July 31, 2020, Nix filed a complaint accusing Hill of sexual harassment.

Less than a week later, Torres-Hill found Hill’s body at his home in Pismo Beach.

“Hill was told there was an investigation,” according to Torres-Hill’s interview. “Hill called Torres, Susan Devine and attorney Don Ernst, and told them that he did not sexually harass Nix. Nix had accused a prior employer of sexual harassment as well.”

Hill said he intended to fight the corruption charges and was working on a strategy with Sanger, Torres-Hill said. Hill had plans to meet with Ernst to discuss Nix’s sexual harassment claim on the evening of Aug. 5. She never heard from Hill again.

The next day, on Aug. 6, Torres-Hill went to work but was concerned that she had not heard from Hill all day. She went by Hill’s home at the end of the day to check on him.

“Hill had a white picket fence around his house that was never locked, but this time there was a small lock on the gate,” according to Torres-Hill’s interview. “Hill’s dog was inside the locked sliding glass door inside the house, and the front door was locked.

“Torres-Hill went through a wooden gate and looked through a window. She saw Hill on the floor in his underwear,” the report said. “He was flat on his back with his hands behind his head and his face caked in fluids. Torres called 911 without going inside the house.

“When the sheriff arrived, he walked Torres to a private area in the back,” the report said. “When they went through the gate he asked, ‘What’s that?’ There was a long kitchen knife shoved into the dirt where someone would have gone through the gate, near the unlocked back door.”

The coroner told Torres-Hill that Hill died of an overdose of cocaine and anti-depressants. Torres-Hill does not think it is a coincidence that one of Helios Dayspring’s former employee’s Sean Despain died in a similar fashion.

For years, Despain provided CalCoastNews reporters information regarding Hill demanding bribes for his votes on the Board of Supervisors. Despain had also spoken with the FBI.

“They want to put me in witness protection,” Despain told a CalCoastNews reporter on July 22, 2020 at a restaurant in SLO. “I’m not leaving my farm.”

Despain died several hours later at his home in San Luis Obispo from an overdose of cocaine and antidepressants, according to a coroner’s report.

“While Hill was suicidal, Torres does not believe that there is evidence of a suicide in Hill’s death,” according to Torres-Hill’s interview. “The lock on the front gate, the knife in the ground outside, and Hill’s body positioning all make Torres think that Hill’s death was a homicide.”

Following Hill’s death, San Luis Obispo County paid Nix $39,288 to settle her sexual harassment claim. The county paid Torres-Hill Hill’s death benefits. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Hill’s  planning commissioner and former girlfriend Dawn Ortiz-Legg to the board of supervisors.

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