Supervisor Jones to Plead No Contest on Lesser Counts

Charges that Ventura County Supervisor Edwin A. Jones exposed himself and lewdly gestured to a woman at a Studio City motel are being dropped because the woman, a key witness for the prosecution, refused to testify, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office announced Tuesday.

After charges of lewd conduct and indecent exposure are dropped, Jones will plead no contest today in San Fernando Municipal Court to lesser charges of public drunkenness and disturbing the peace under an agreement reached between Jones’ attorney and city attorneys, lawyers for both sides said.

Subject to Same Penalties

The no-contest plea will leave Jones subject to the same penalties as a guilty plea.

Jones declined to comment, but his attorney, Charles R. English, said, “Our position all along was that Ed did not do anything of an illegal sexual nature.” English said he was pleased with the outcome of the case.

According to the misdemeanor charges being dropped, Jones, 55, a former Thousand Oaks mayor, stood naked in the doorway of a room at the Charles Motel on Ventura Boulevard on June 12 and beckoned suggestively to 22-year-old Cozette Smith as she walked across the courtyard. Two officers, on routine patrol in a squad car through the adult motel’s parking lot, were directed by Smith to the supervisor’s room.

Jones, who was at the motel with a girlfriend, has called his extramarital affair immoral but has maintained he was innocent of the lewd-conduct and indecent-exposure charges.

While police questioned Jones in the motel room, he made a move toward the officers that a police report described as “of a threatening nature” and police responded by spraying tear gas in his face. Police said Jones was “extremely intoxicated.”

English said the charges of drunkenness and disturbing the peace “accurately reflect what went on.”

The police report and the city attorney’s case were founded on Smith’s complaint against Jones, but she “does not wish to testify,” said Deputy City Atty. George Schell.

Smith, who moved out of the Charles Motel one week after criminal charges were filed, “just didn’t want to deal with it,” said Schell. “She said that, quite frankly, she probably wouldn’t have made a phone call to police if they hadn’t been there.

“We’re not saying there’s no factual basis for the charges. It’s just a matter of practicality,” Schell said.

The deputy city attorney also noted that Smith’s testimony might have been vulnerable to the defense attorney’s questioning about what she could see of Jones as she stood 80 to 90 feet away, with two rows of parked cars between them.

“Those were areas for misperception or raising of doubt,” he said.

The misdemeanor charge of public drunkenness carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The maximum penalty for disturbing the peace is 90 days in jail and a $400 fine.

Schell said he intends to ask San Fernando Municipal Judge Morton Rochman today to sentence Jones to two years’ summary probation and a fine of about $1,000. Schell also will request a judicial order requiring Jones to seek alcohol-abuse counseling as well as psychological counseling, with periodic reviews by the court.

Jones has been receiving counseling for alcohol abuse for an unspecified time, English said.

The son of a Presbyterian minister, Jones has been married for 33 years and has five children. He previously has said he was receiving marriage counseling from his family minister after the motel incident.

The criminal charges prompted Jones, a Republican, to resign as chairman of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, but he retained his $31,270 post as the county’s supervisor for the 2nd District, which runs from the Conejo Valley in eastern Ventura County through Thousand Oaks and south Camarillo to the ocean south of Port Hueneme.

Jones’ rivals saw him as politically weakened by the charges and vulnerable to a challenge from other candidates for his office, especially if he were convicted of lewd conduct. Two weeks ago, supporters of Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Madge Schaefer formed a committee to evaluate a possible run against Jones.

But supporters of the three-term supervisor rallied to Jones’ side, establishing the Ed Jones Legal Fund. The fund has raised slightly more than $6,000 from about 120 contributors, said David Irwin, a Thousand Oaks stockbroker and fund organizer. He estimated Jones’ legal expenses at $11,000.