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| 10 shots at vehicles. "I was just a...dumb kid." |
Until today:
Does a criminal conviction matter in an election? (OC Reg) Rancho Santa Margarita Councilman Jesse Petrilla was convicted of assault with a firearm when he was 17.
Republican Assembly candidate Jesse Petrilla, who is running to replace Diane Harkey in the 73rd District in November, said voters should not judge him based on his conviction as a minor on two felony counts of assault with a firearm.
In 2001, authorities accused Petrilla of shooting a 22-caliber rifle at a group of people who had gathered for a fight. Although he was 17 years old at the time, Petrilla was charged as an adult because of seriousness of the accusations.
“I regret the incident,” Petrilla, 30, now a Rancho Santa Margarita councilman, said. “There were a lot of things that I could have done to get out of it before it escalated to that point, but I was just a young, dumb kid.”
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Petrilla fired as many as 10 shots before people fled and contacted authorities, according to the news report. The shots didn’t hit anyone, but struck vehicles. One person heard a bullet whiz overhead, according to the report.
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| Other Repub: Bryson favors teachers and other employees bringing guns to school |
Prosecutors offered a plea deal to drop all but two felony counts of assault with a firearm, which Petrilla accepted on Aug. 10, 2001, according to court documents.
Petrilla pleaded no contest to the two felony counts and admitted to a gun use enhancement allegation. He was sentenced to 240 days in jail and five years of probation.
Petrilla had spent 159 days in custody to that point. He was credited with time served and released.
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The court ended his probation after three years. Petrilla emphasized that his felony conviction was later reduced to misdemeanors and his record was expunged in 2006.
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Fredric D. Woocher, an election law attorney at Strumwasser & Woocher LLP in Los Angeles, said no laws compel Petrilla to disclose to voters his conviction in city or state elections.
The expungement allows Petrilla to answer on many job applications that he hasn’t been convicted. However, it doesn’t relieve him of the obligation to disclose the conviction “in response to any direct question contained in any questionnaire or application for public offices,” according to his court order.
In Rancho Santa Margarita City Council elections, candidates are asked if they are qualified to hold office, but not if they have a conviction, City Clerk Molly McLaughlin said.
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Thad Kousser, associate professor of political science at UC San Diego, said Petrilla’s conviction clouds his candidacy for the Assembly race but doesn’t doom it, especially because the conviction happened when he was a juvenile.
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But two things could hurt Petrilla, Kousser said.
First, voters received news of the conviction from a source other than Petrilla – a local online-only news site published an article about the conviction in January. That, Kousser said, could raise questions about Petrilla’s honesty.
Second, the information came out before the June 3 primary rather than between the primary and the November general election. For the primary, Republican voters who are considering voting for Petrilla can change their mind and choose from other Republican candidates.
If the information had come out after the primary and Petrilla were to win it, there’s a chance he would face a Democratic candidate in the general election, and Republican voters might decide they would have no choice but to vote for him, Kousser said.
The other Republican candidates in the Assembly race are Capistrano Unified School District trustee Anna Bryson, Dana Point Councilman Bill Brough and former Laguna Niguel Mayor Paul Glaab. Wendy Gabriella, a constitutional lawyer and anthropology professor at Irvine Valley College, is the only Democrat in the race….
