A sign of silliness nearly distracted us

Denis Bilodeau stood outside an Orange County courtroom looking like a schoolboy whose mom had just gotten him released from detention. And, as a matter of fact, “Mommy” was standing beside him in the form of Jennifer Keller, the kind of can-do attorney who apparently told the D.A.’s office in no uncertain terms that if it wanted to pursue a misdemeanor sign-stealing case against her client, well, bring it on.

That prompted some chin-stroking by Deputy D.A. Scott Zidbeck, no doubt envisioning a trial in which jurors wondered why they had given up time at work for a case like this. So, the Bilodeau Affair vaporized with the lawyers speaking softly to the judge out of everyone else’s earshot and in essence agreeing to drop the whole thing.

Which just goes to show you, the wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceedingly silly.

“It’s really a dumb case,” Keller said later.

Bilodeau was charged with removing a sign last fall in the final days of the election for Orange City Council candidates. In a field of 11 candidates, he finished second and won one of the two seats. The story had a juicy element in that someone later identified as another candidate’s daughter caught two people on videotape taking the sign down in a post-midnight foray. The video later popped up on YouTube. Bilodeau won’t cop to being one of the two people, but the general consensus seems to be that he was.

Doesn’t matter, Keller argues. The sign wasn’t an official campaign poster because it didn’t indicate who had put it up. Nor, Keller says, was it proved that the property owner gave permission for it to be posted. Legally, Keller says, that made the sign “abandoned property” and not subject to having been stolen from anyone.

“If I come up with a sign that says, ‘Down With Dana Parsons’ and I go stick it on your next-door neighbor’s lawn without permission,” Keller said, “you’re entitled to go remove it.”

Now she tells me.

The sign that someone took down from the intersection at Chapman and Hewes in Orange read, “See Me Waste Your $$” and included a website “Dumpdenis.com.”

Because the case is such a sack of small potatoes, the temptation is to be jokey about it. After all, nobody died.

But that would let the D.A.’s office off the hook too easily. I doubt Zidbeck was hanging his hat on the case -- and both Keller and Bilodeau took pains to praise him for now backing off -- but why aren’t they more upset?

Keller’s take on the case didn’t sound like bar exam stuff. Why did it drag out for seven months before being cashiered?

Bilodeau has been “freed,” but the case cost him some anxiety and some withdrawals from his bank account. I asked if Keller worked pro bono for him, and he assured me she didn’t.

Strikes me as the kind of case where the system often makes the loser pay court costs. Wouldn’t it make for a happy ending if the D.A.’s office paid Bilodeau’s legal bills?

I put in a call to Zidbeck but didn’t hear back.

On Tuesday Bilodeau didn’t want to say anything to rankle the D.A.’s office, so I did the responsible thing -- I gave him 24 hours to build up a head of steam about the case lingering so long.

But on Wednesday afternoon, he still was charitable. “I’m not going to whine about it,” he said. “That’s our system.”

He said the D.A.’s office hadn’t been unreasonable about the case. He understands, to an extent, why it filed the case. Had it not, he said, it might have appeared the D.A. was ignoring an election-campaign violation. In fact, he said, the smallness of the case probably accounted for it gathering some dust since last November.

Wow. That is graciousness to a fault for a guy who was charged with a crime the night before the election. If the case were so small, why couldn’t it have been dumped in the first week of its life?

So, no harm no foul? “This was a horrible experience for me,” Bilodeau said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. This was about me and my family name and my family.”

I asked why he didn’t pay some token fine and be done with it months ago.

“You can’t buy back your reputation,” he said. “The money was immaterial to me. My worst offense in my life, I think, is that I got a street-sweeping ticket.”

Yippee. Keller is happy. Bilodeau is happy. Zidbeck may well be happy but just didn’t want to share it with me.

Why am I unhappy, then? Should it be any skin off my nose that Bilodeau had to fork over dough for a case that the D.A. wouldn’t take to court?

Dramatic pause as I sigh. It’s just that on some days I expect a lot from the legal system.

Like everybody else, I’ll have to get over that.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at

dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns: www.latimes.com/parsons