Councilman Opts for Guilty Plea Over a Trial for Theft

A Moorpark official accused of stealing $5,500 from the U.S. post office where he worked said in federal court Monday that he will plead guilty rather than face trial, which is scheduled to begin today.

City Councilman Danny Allen Woolard, 39, also said he will probably resign from the five-member council today in a letter to the city manager.

Woolard told U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real that he would enter the guilty plea after the judge refused to bar as evidence a handwritten confession that Woolard made to postal inspectors last fall. In the confession, Woolard said he embezzled cash from the Moorpark Post Office, where he worked as a clerk, to support a cocaine habit.

Woolard’s attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Brian Q. Robbins, argued that Woolard was coerced into confessing by postal inspectors who made him fear that he would be arrested in public. But Robbins said the councilman does not deny the contents of his confession.

“He doesn’t contest the accuracy of the statement, only the circumstances of the confession,” Robbins told the judge.

“He has led a very normal life except for his position on the City Council, which meant a lot to him,” Robbins said, adding that Woolard knew that his public career would be “destroyed” by a public arrest.

Prosecutor’s Argument

Assistant U.S. Atty. Duane J. Deskins, who prosecuted the case, argued that Woolard voluntarily made the confession “because he was guilty.”

In addition, he said, it was illogical for Woolard to believe that confession would be less damaging to his political career than a public arrest.

Real ruled that Woolard was not coerced into making his confession.

Moorpark Postmaster Monte Preston discovered the $5,500 theft after a surprise audit of Woolard’s work Sept. 23, according to court records. Preston told postal officials he had become suspicious of Woolard because the employee had been requesting large quantities of stamps “for no apparent reason,” the records said.

Woolard told postal authorities that, in an attempt to cover up his theft the day after the shortage was discovered, he bought $5,500 worth of stamps in Los Angeles and returned them to the Moorpark Post Office.

But after “discovering” the stamps in a cabinet during questioning by postal inspectors on Sept. 25, Woolard began to act nervous and then made his confession, postal Inspector Larry L. Larson said in court Monday.

He Said Money Was Used for Cocaine

Woolard at first told the inspectors that he had taken the money to pay off a $7,000 gambling debt, but later that day, he admitted that he used the money to buy cocaine.

Woolard wrote in his confession that he “got caught up in the chain of events that all cocaine addicts experience.”

Woolard, who was elected to the City Council in 1984 and is a 30-year resident of the east Ventura County city, was indicted by a federal grand jury Nov. 21. He pleaded not guilty to an embezzlement charge at his arraignment Dec. 1.

Woolard went to work for the post office in 1973, and was a window clerk in Moorpark for the past five years. He resigned from the post office job the day after he made his confession.

The maximum sentence for the embezzlement charge is 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, Deskins said. Woolard will probably be sentenced in 30 days, he said.