Another wild ride billed to taxpayers

No driver’s license?

No problem.

Can’t really drive?

I’ve got just the fleet for you. But you have to have connections at Los Angeles City Hall.

You already know about the antics of City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and his wife. Now here’s another wild ride involving an aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry.

From the beginning, Monterey Park police thought something was fishy about the story Hugo Ortiz told them.

Ortiz showed up at the Police Department the morning after his city-issued Toyota Prius was found totaled and abandoned in the middle of a street last September. He said he wanted to report a stolen car.

The police officer who took the report happened to know the car had already been towed to an impoundment lot by police. Now he detected an odor of alcohol wafting across the counter.

Whether it came from Ortiz or his fiancee was unclear to the officer. But it was enough to make him wonder how the car really ended up abandoned. The officer told Ortiz that if he had crashed his own car, he’d better tell the truth, because filing a false report is a crime.

Ortiz, a field deputy whom Councilwoman Perry refers to as an exemplary employee, stuck to his story and filed the stolen auto report. Unfortunately for him, the case was kicked over to Monterey Park Police Det. Robin Lopez, a crack investigator who has worked the stolen auto detail for almost five years.

Lopez called Ortiz down to the station and questioned him for two hours.

“I tell him I’m suspicious,” says Lopez, “and I tell him I will continue to investigate.”

Early in October, she called him back and asked him to submit to a lie detector-type test known as a voice stress analyzer. The results are inadmissible in court, and Ortiz could have refused. But he complied, and according to Lopez, his answer to a question about the alleged car theft indicated deception.

When Lopez told Ortiz she was going to submit her findings to the district attorney, his story began to change, and finally he fessed up.

Ortiz said his unlicensed 17-year-old daughter, who was learning how to drive, had taken the car late one night without his knowledge and crashed it into a pole in the parking lot of Hometown Buffet in Montebello.

Maybe she thought it was a drive-through. I don’t know, but we’re lucky Michelle Delgadillo wasn’t in the same area or half the town could have been leveled.

Ortiz’s new story was that after the collision his daughter called his fiancee, who had been out drinking with friends (hence the alcohol smell on the morning the report was filed), and the fiancee called him. He tried to drive the car back to his home in Monterey Park, but it conked out on him and he walked away. When he couldn’t find it the next morning, he reported it stolen.

At this point, Lopez didn’t know what to believe about who was driving Ortiz’s Prius, but she was convinced he was lying. Among other problems, he had told police that he was the last driver of the vehicle and that it had been stolen from his residence.

Ortiz was charged with filing a fraudulent crime report and obstructing police work.

He was arrested and released on a $10,000 bond pending trial.

Last month, on the eve of trial, Ortiz pleaded no contest to misdemeanor obstruction, and the other count was dropped. He was sentenced to three months’ probation and ordered to pay $835 in fines.

So what happened back at the office? Not much.

The city junked the 2002 vehicle, and after Perry consulted the city attorney’s office, Ortiz was placed on probation late last year and told he couldn’t have another city car. When he needs one for work now, he uses a pool vehicle, but isn’t supposed to take it home.

And what about the cost of the damage, which Lopez said came to $14,000?

Perry said Ortiz offered to make good on the loss. But nine months later, he hasn’t yet paid a nickel, which means city taxpayers are once again footing the bill for the City Hall destruction derby. Couldn’t Ortiz at least kick us a few two-for-one coupons to Hometown Buffet?

My guess is that if Det. Lopez, or any other cop, did what Ortiz did, they’d be looking for work. I’m not saying Ortiz, who may stupidly but understandably have been trying to cover for his daughter, should be fired. But can Perry please explain why Ortiz barely got a slap on the wrist?

Perry said she still isn’t convinced, based on his explanation of events, that he lied about anything or was guilty of any crime. She said Ortiz told her he actually thought the car had been stolen when he filed the report, because it wasn’t where it had been abandoned the night before.

Um-hmm.

Then why did he plead no contest to obstruction?

“Ask his attorney,” Perry said.

I did. Lawyer Kevin McKesson, whom Ortiz himself referred me to after refusing to discuss the matter, said of the plea arrangement: “I think we worked out a reasonable disposition.”

Hats off, by the way, to Det. Lopez. It’s nice to know there are still police departments that take minor cases seriously and investigate them so professionally.

If only L.A. City Hall were run that way.

Lopez told me that as she prepared for trial, she failed in three attempts to get a copy of the “City of Los Angeles Accident Report.”

I know what she means. On Friday, the city attorney’s office told me it had no copy of such a report, and suggested I call the fleet manager in General Services. I had already checked with him. He had told me to try the city attorney.

Is this any way to run a city?

Later in the day, Perry’s office produced a copy of the report, in which Ortiz said a family member “accidentally pressed accelerator & hit steel poles.”

When I asked Jonathan Diamond, a Delgadillo spokesman, to explain the light disciplinary action against Ortiz, he said the city attorney’s office of course knew about the damaged vehicle late last year but knew nothing about charges against Ortiz, or his guilty plea, until my call.

What a surprise.

In the midst of his own little scandal involving vehicles, Delgadillo admitted to me two weeks ago that he had driven for more than a year without car insurance. His wife was uninsured for even longer and was unlicensed when she wrecked his city car.

I suppose it would be hypocritical, to say the least, if the city attorney cracked down on Hugo Ortiz.

To save city employees from themselves, maybe the best course is to cut back drastically on the fleet. Why can’t a council field rep use his own car and put in for mileage, like the rest of the working world? Why does every council member need seven or eight cars for staff use?

Why do the five members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have 64 take-home vehicles for themselves and staff?

I could go on and on, and I will, if anyone out there would like to report more vehicle abuse or any other shenanigans to the Fender Bender Hotline. We’re up and running 24 hours a day, we work all major holidays, and you know where to reach us:

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steve.lopez@latimes.com