Court Issues Warrant for No-Show Minister : Clergyman Convicted of 46 Contempt Counts for Nursing Homes Misses His Sentencing Date

The Rev. Kenneth Lowe, convicted of 46 contempt counts for refusing to stop operating unlicensed board-and-care homes, failed to appear for sentencing and will be arrested if he does not surrender to the court.

The Universal Life Church minister, who faces several months in jail, failed to appear for sentencing Tuesday before Orange County Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ryan.

Instead, Lowe’s wife delivered to the court what he had titled a “notice of intention to exhaust habeas corpus remedies.”

Ryan found Lowe in contempt of court again for failing to appear and ordered that a bench warrant be issued for his arrest. The warrant had not been issued by late Wednesday.

Reached by phone at their Mission Viejo home Wednesday, Norma Lowe said she didn’t know where her husband was. “He’s not in jail,” she said. “At least not to my knowledge.”

Lowe, ordained by the Modesto-based mail-order ministry, also filed a petition Tuesday with the 4th District Court of Appeal for the writ of habeas corpus . However, that is a legal maneuver used to free someone already in custody. His request was received but had not been ruled on Wednesday.

“I think it’s a little premature,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Richard Spector, who prosecuted the case, said of the writ. “He hasn’t even been sentenced yet.”

Lowe, 56, was convicted last Thursday of violating a 1984 Superior Court order to close his four unlicensed homes for the elderly. Despite the court order, Lowe has continued to operate at least one of the homes, located in El Toro, Spector said. He said he thinks that there are 10 elderly residents now at that home, seven of whom are relatively new patients.

Ryan had found Lowe guilty of the 46 contempt counts Dec. 9. She fined him $23,000 and sentenced him to serve 230 days in the Orange County Jail, the maximum penalty for contempt. But Ryan subsequently vacated the sentencing because she had failed to rule on his motion for a new trial, which he had requested on the grounds that he had had no legal counsel.

Last Thursday, she denied the Texas-born minister’s request for a new trial, stating that he had fired every attorney representing him. “You’ve made it very clear you wanted to represent yourself,” she said.

In the notice that his wife delivered to Ryan, Lowe said his intent was not to be in contempt of court by failing to appear, but that he did not think he had received a fair hearing during his trial. His notice also stated that he wanted to “respectfully inform the court that he is in abject and mortal fear for his life if he is incarcerated due to his present physical condition. . . .” Attached to the notice was a letter from Lowe’s doctor stating that Lowe has heart problems.

Lowe stated that, despite assertions that his alleged heart condition can be adequately managed in the Orange County Jail, he thinks that the jail has the highest death rate in the country among county jails. He wrote that he was concerned about “being carried out of Sheriff Brad Gates’ ‘Gray Bar Hotel’ (i.e. jail) in one of Coroner Brad Gates’ body bags.”