D.A. Files Charges Over Trash Raid on Ex-Ojai Official

While it is often said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, Jerome Landfield doesn’t like anyone cashing in on his.

The 53-year-old architect, who was ousted from the Ojai Planning Commission in November, was allegedly assaulted while trying to stop a pre-dawn thief who made off with a bag of garbage from the curb of his Ojai Valley home.

The Ventura County district attorney’s office said this week that charges of petty theft and battery have been filed against Michael Blase of Camarillo, who told police that he was working for Probe Investigations, a Beverly Hills-based detective agency.

Neither Blase nor Probe could be reached for comment, but Landfield suspects that the trail of trash may lead to City Hall.

In the 6 months that he served on the commission, he said he was criticized by some councilmen and city officials for speaking out against numerous development plans that he saw as costly, growth-inducing and aesthetically offensive.

Amid the papers and pineapple rinds that his alleged assailant made off with, he said, was a rough draft of his account of the dispute, which ended with his dismissal Nov. 9 by the Ojai City Council.

“I imagine they were looking for something to defame me with or smear me with,” Landfield said.

But James D. Loebl, the longtime councilman who made the motion to oust Landfield, dismissed the allegations. He said Landfield was removed because he was antagonistic and had difficulty dealing with the public, his fellow commissioners and city officials.

“His interpersonal relationships . . . reflected an inability to get along with people and get the job done,” Loebl said. “I think, frankly, Mr. Landfield’s feelings were hurt . . . but I can’t imagine why anyone connected with the city would be very interested in his garbage.”

Although the man who was interested in Landfield’s garbage told him that he had a legal right to be rummaging at 3 a.m., the district attorney’s office disagreed.

A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year gave police the right to inspect trash cans for incriminating evidence, but the ruling did not extend to the general public, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth W. Riley said.

On a 6-2 vote, the high court ruled in May that such investigations by police did not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches because residents have no reason to believe that their discarded trash is private.

“It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops and other members of the public,” Justice Byron R. White wrote.

Still, the district attorney’s office said that does not mean that discarded trash is up for grabs.

“Just by setting it on the curb, you don’t lose all property rights,” Riley said. “You haven’t completely abandoned it.”

Landfield said he set his trash out Dec. 6, anticipating the regular Dec. 7 pickup. About midnight, he heard a car pull up in front of his house, then speed away.

Then at 3 a.m., Landfield, who had been working all night in his home office, heard a car pull up again. Through a window, he saw the silhouette of a man bobbing over his trash can.

He said he ran from the house with a flashlight and confronted the man, who said he was collecting junk for his sons to sell at a flea market. But when Landfield saw the car a few feet away with the trunk open and no other trash inside, he demanded that the man give back the garbage, which he was scooping into a large plastic bag.

When the man refused, Landfield tried to grab the bag. “The next thing I knew, he had flipped me onto the pavement and was on top of me,” Landfield said. “I was totally immobile and completely taken unawares.”

After Landfield told the man that he could have the garbage, he was released and ran to the house to call police. He had memorized the man’s license plate number, which police traced to Blase.

“I just want to be left alone,” Landfield said. “But they must be afraid I’ve stumbled onto something.”

However, Councilman Frank McDevitt, who cast the lone vote in Landfield’s defense last month, said the allegation was unfounded.

“I was very unhappy about them firing him,” McDevitt said. “And I can understand Mr. Landfield maybe having that feeling. . . . But I can’t envision anyone going to this extreme. It seems pretty far out.”