Judge Fines Ex-Simi Valley Officer $19,255 for Lying

A former Simi Valley reserve police officer who lied in saying he had been ambushed and shot was ordered by a Ventura County judge Wednesday to pay $19,255 in restitution and fines.

Municipal Judge Kenneth R. Yegan sentenced Richard A. Todd, 26, to pay $13,821 to the Simi Valley Police Department, $424 to the California Highway Patrol, $3,253 to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and $157 to the Ventura Police Department. The payments cover overtime and other costs of the four agencies during the search for the men who Todd said shot him, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward F. Brodie.

3-Year Probation

Yegan also placed Todd on three years’ probation, ordered him to pay $1,600 in fines to Ventura County and the state, to perform 120 hours of community service and undergo psychotherapy. He was forbidden from possessing a gun.

“I think it would be a tremendous rehabilitative tool for you to make the community whole,” Yegan said in pronouncing sentence. “I think I’ve given you a tremendous break in this case.”

Todd could have received one year in County Jail for his Nov. 13 no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false report of an emergency.

Todd, who worked three nights a week as an unpaid reserve officer, shot himself three times in the chest and abdomen and once in the hand while on duty Oct. 9. His bulletproof vest deflected three of the bullets but his hand required several stitches.

Todd at first claimed that four or five men had jumped him as he got out of his patrol car, shot him several times with his service revolver, then handcuffed him to a baseball field’s backstop and left. But he later admitted making up the story in an attempt to impress his estranged wife, who has since filed for divorce.

At the sentencing hearing Wednesday, Brodie argued that Todd’s offense deserved a strict fine because it diminished respect for the Simi Valley police force, wasted police time and resources and created fear that a police killer was loose.

‘Stupid Act’

Todd’s lawyer, Joseph H. Brindley, argued that Todd had already paid a “severe price . . . for this stupid act.” Brindley said Todd lost jobs as an electronics technician and as a reserve officer, and that his dreams of becoming a paid, full-time officer “have been completely dashed to the ground.”

Brindley said he would appeal the restitution order, calling it “absolutely crazy.”

Todd, who now works as a sales clerk at a department store, called the fine “a little stiff,” but declined further comment.

Yegan said Todd is to pay $350 a month, beginning Jan. 1.