Newport Beach Man Faces Jail Time If Convicted

Opening statements are scheduled for Thursday in a Santa Ana courtroom in the trial of former Orange County Assessor Webster Guillory, who is charged with filing false nomination papers.

According to prosecutors, on March 7, 2014, the deadline to file nomination papers for the primary, Guillory gathered nominating signatures on two petitions while an associate gathered and collected three full pages of 10 signatures each.

Guillory signed his name on two of the petitions collected by his associate -- falsely claiming he had collected and witnessed the signatures, according to Deputy District Attorney Brock Zimmon.

Guillory was initially facing felony charges, but one count was dropped in March during a preliminary hearing and two other counts were reduced to misdemeanors.

The dropped count related to nomination papers that were signed by assessor’s office employee Shaw Linn but circulated by another employee, Mike Hannah, who intended to run to succeed Guillory, who had been planning to retire.

When Hannah backed out of the race, Guillory decided to quickly gather signatures to get on the ballot.

If convicted, Guillory, 70, of Newport Beach, faces a maximum punishment of two years in jail and a $2,000 fine, Zimmon said. Before the preliminary hearing, Guillory was facing four years and four months behind bars if convicted.

Guillory’s attorney, John Barnett, said after the preliminary hearing that evidence was “very clear Mr. Guillory did not file a false document.”

“He had no reason to file a false document, a document he knew to be inaccurate or false,” Barnett said.

Barnett said Hannah was at work and close by while Guillory was scrambling to gather signatures so he could have easily tracked Hannah down to sign the document.

“It’s now so clear the people cannot identify a motive, a reason” that Guillory would intentionally break the law, Barnett said.

“They tried to do it (at the preliminary hearing) and they simply have not done it. And absent any reason to do it, their case fails.”

Barnett chalked it up to a mere mistake that was not criminal.

Claude Parrish, a former chairman of the state Board of Equalization, defeated Guillory in the November general election last year.

City News Service