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Police Capt. Steve Cercone said a note had not been found, but there was no evidence of an accident or foul play. Sanford, who lived in Aptos, was not staying at the Embassy Suites and several hotel employees told police they saw a man pacing the halls of one of the top floors of the 12-story building, the tallest in the area.

"There is no indication that it was anything other than a suicide," Cercone said. "We believe it was not an accident based on the fact that someone would have to make a definite effort to climb over the balcony."

In 2004, Sanford appeared before the Supreme Court with Michael Newdow, an atheist who sued the Elk Grove Unified School District, claiming that the mention of God in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment's separation of church and state.

More recently, Sanford was in court on his own behalf, in a breach of contract and defamation lawsuit against Michael Zwerling, the owner of KSCO and KOMY radio stations. According to his attorney and friend Shawn Mills, Sanford alleged that Zwerling broke a 2005 agreement to sell airtime to Sanford and provide him with media credentials. Zwerling declined to comment.

According to media accounts, the disagreement between the men started after Sanford used a KOMY press credential to join the White House press corps and asked then-press secretary Scott McClellan if the administration's leak of Valerie Plame's identity was tantamount to treason. It's unclear what will happen with the case, which was set for trial in February.

"I know it was particularly troubling for him," Brennan said. "He felt he was treated very poorly and it was difficult for him to understand."

I was the last official news director for KOMY 134o am Watsonville. Owner Phil Rather closed the station in the early 90s and sold the land for affordable housing. KOMY lay dormat for many years. I knew Zwerling and interviewed with him following the closing of KOMY He had recently bought KSCO. He couldn't afford me, although I had the ratings for morning news.. He had other plans anyway and later implemented that format...

Later I heard that Zwerling bought KOMY, but that it was returned to air as a one watt station. A relic of its former self, but still on the air. Local news was not part of the format that I knew of.... So in essence that makes me the last official news-director with a press card of KOMY...

How some dirtbag lawyer could use MY press credentials at the White House is beyond me---and to ask such a bizzare question...jjeez