Big loan brewer

Criminal defense attorney Bob Brewer of Del Mar, who ran a lackluster campaign against Republican District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis this spring, has finally folded his campaign committee. A disclosure statement filed with the county Registrar of Voters shows that from July 1 through August 21, the committee’s end date, Brewer came up with post-election cash of $145,805 — in addition to the $15,245 he had in the kitty — and made payments of $161,050. That left him with zero leftover funds. The wealthy lawyer ended up sinking $256,000 of his own money into the campaign this year, according to the disclosure.

Paid-off creditors included onetime San Diego political consulting wonder boy Tom Shepard ($21,749) and Chris Mottola Consulting of Cape May, New Jersey ($25,298). Brewer, who ran as an independent, nevertheless surrounded himself with Republican advisors, leading some to wonder whether he was truly interested in knocking off the GOP’s Dumanis. Mottola previously worked for president George W. Bush, senator John McCain of Arizona, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Following this year’s gig for Brewer, the political guru landed a job at Mercury Public Affairs, the politics and lobbying shop that counts California Democratic ex-Assembly speaker and Logan Heights–raised Fabian Nuñez among its partners.

His son Esteban Nuñez copped a plea to a manslaughter rap resulting from his role in the October 2008 death of an SDSU student during a drunken brawl. When Republican then–governor Arnold Schwarzenegger commuted Esteban’s sentence from 16 to 7 years the day before leaving office, Dumanis condemned the move, saying it “greatly diminishes justice.”