Police Chief Gives Drifter 1-Way Trip on Plane to Miami

Santa Monica Police Chief James Keane used city funds to buy a one-way plane ticket to Miami for a transient with a history of sex-related offenses who had been frequenting the city’s beaches, officials confirmed Wednesday.

City Atty. Robert Myers said Keane spent “something in the neighborhood of $200” to send Weston J. Hill, 44, to Florida a month ago, after Hill was released from Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk.

Myers said he told the chief, “The expenditure was proper, after determining the individual had not been asked to leave . . . and there was no coercion.”

The city attorney said that in buying Hill the plane ticket, the chief was doing his duty “to protect the city of Santa Monica--a practical way of doing that was to help this individual leave.”

Keane could not be reached for comment Wednesday night, but United Press International, earlier in the day, quoted him as saying, “We owe one to Florida.”

Keane explained that he was referring to a 1982 case in which a Florida judge gave 24-year-old prostitute Melanie King the choice between prison or a one-way ticket to Los Angeles.