Please note important updates below.
PWeekly's Andre Coleman today has a story about Altadena Town Councilman Herbert Simmons' arrests on felony charges in 1995, 1998, and 1999.
The charges related to receiving stolen property (computer equipment) while running a computer repair home business in Altadena. The felony charges were later reduced to misdemeanors.
Says the Weekly, Simmons was sentenced to three years probation and 400 hours of community service for the 1995 offense and two years probation and 200 hours of community service for the 1998 offense, which included over $44,000 of computers stolen from Disney and Health Net. Charges were dismissed in the 1999 case, and his 1998 conviction was expunged after he made restitution. Read the whole thing.
UPDATE 10:30 PM: The links died (altho' we THINK we fixed the one in the paragraph above) and the story has been considerably rewritten and expanded since this morning. We have changed our headline to reflect that. These paragraphs are rewritten or new:
According to court documents, Simmons, now 40, was arrested three times on felony charges of receiving stolen property — all later reduced to misdemeanors, with two cases expunged and Simmons exonerated on the third — in 1995, 1998 and 1999 while running a computer repair business from his Altadena residence.
“These past experiences have been wholly resolved,” Simmons told the Weekly. “I’m not surprised someone is trying to use this against me. I have never claimed to be perfect and I have always been open and aboveboard and eager to serve the community.” The Weekly received information about Simmons’ criminal past in the form of a letter signed only “A concerned citizen.” The accusations were mostly wrong.
A search of court records by the paper revealed the misdemeanor convictions. Simmons was exonerated in the last case, and the two misdemeanors were expunged, but all three cases remain on file and available for review.
There are also more details of Simmons' scrapes with the law and the letters from Antonovich and PUSD Superintendent Edwin Diaz that first appeared on Altadenablog, along with comments from Simmons's attorney Rene Amy.
