Homeowner in Hot Water Agrees to Pay Electric Bill

The La Costa man accused of diverting more than $10,000 worth of electricity to power the chandeliers, hot tub and other fixtures in his home agreed Wednesday to pay San Diego Gas & Electric Co. the $10,184 that the utility had gone to court to collect.

Andre Williams, the defendant in a lawsuit filed last week seeking $133,000 in damages, agreed to pay the $10,184 bill in 12 installments over the next year, beginning with a $5,480 payment due Friday, SDG&E; officials said.

“We do feel that we did what we set out to accomplish--to rebill a customer who was illegally receiving the benefit of unmetered electricity,” Darryl Murry, who is in charge of the utility’s energy theft group, said of the agreement.

Under the agreement, announced at a California Public Utilities Commission meeting Wednesday in San Diego, Williams agreed to drop his appeal of an earlier PUC opinion that he should pay SDG&E;, Murry said.

However, Murry said SDG&E; is not dropping its lawsuit against Williams, filed in Superior Court. If Williams fails to pay the $10,184 “in a timely manner,” he will be subject to a default judgment “for a considerable amount of money,” Murry said.

“We will not drop our suit until all monies are paid in full,” Murry said.

Williams, 53, reached at his home Wednesday, said he agreed to settle the case “so we don’t have to fight any more and so we don’t have to pay attorneys any more.” He claimed that the utility had “dropped their lawsuit against me”--a claim Murry rebutted.

Williams, who suggested in an interview last week that he might not have been responsible for diverting the electricity, on Wednesday said only that he had agreed “to pay my bills to the electric company. That’s all I have to pay.

“As far as the stealing is concerned, they’ve dropped that completely,” he said.

Murry said there was no mention in the settlement of the alleged theft because Williams had agreed in earlier criminal proceedings to plead guilty to disturbing the peace in return for the state’s reducing the charge from felony tampering with wires.

“He never pleaded to theft of electricity, only to disturbing the peace,” Murry said.

According to SDG&E;, the case against Williams, who has described himself as a retired investor, began in January, 1986, when a member of his household called the power company to report a problem with some lights.

A serviceman responding to the call noticed an “illegal bypass” bringing in unmetered electricity, Murry said. After obtaining a search warrant, utility officials found that the electricity was powering the home’s ground- and lower-level bedrooms, bathrooms, garage, spa, sauna, steam bath, several chandeliers, bar lamps, floodlights, heaters and appliances, SDG&E; alleged.

The utility billed Williams $10,184 for allegedly using unmetered electricity from 1980 to 1986. Then it filed criminal charges that resulted in the plea bargain, under which Williams agreed to pay restitution to SDG&E.;

According to Murry, Williams reneged on the restitution. Instead, he appealed to the PUC for a hearing on the disputed bill. So SDG&E; last week filed its civil suit seeking to recoup the money owed plus triple and punitive damages.

“We always seek media attention to let the public know that we are doing something to combat the problem of energy theft,” said Murry, who attributed the settlement in part to media coverage of the lawsuit. “One of our biggest deterrences is publicity on thieves who have been caught.”

SDG&E; estimates that it loses $13 million a year to energy theft. Last year, Murry said, the utility “rebilled” 160 customers for allegedly taking unmetered electricity. He said the firm ended up suing in only seven of those cases, four of which have since been settled.

The $133,000 claim in Williams’ suit made it the second-largest energy-theft case ever pursued by the utility, officials said.