20 Times Workers Charged in Sale of Illegal Drugs

Twenty production department employees of The Times Orange County edition were charged Tuesday with selling cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine to fellow employees, authorities said.

The charges culminated a 5-month investigation that began last August when The Times contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s Department with information that drugs allegedly were being sold at the newspaper’s Costa Mesa plant.

All 20 were arrested Tuesday and bail was set at $25,000 each. All of those charged were employed in the 800-member production department, where the pressroom and composing room are located.

Most of the employees were arrested at their homes, but some were taken into custody after they left The Times office on Sunflower Avenue. The Times employs 1,770 people at the plant.

Capt. Tim Simon, head of the Sheriff’s Department Special Investigations Unit, said the investigation used informants, whom he declined to identify, to buy the drugs.

“There was no undercover police officer at any time operating on the plant property or disguised as a Times employee,” he said. “The buys were made in what we call a controlled fashion, that were backed up with tape recordings of the transaction.”

Beginning last September and running through last week, Simon said, informants made 32 separate purchases of small amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. The drugs were bought from the 20 suspects, Simon said.

3 Types of Drugs

Of the 32 separate buys, Simon said 20 were cocaine, four were methamphetamine and eight were marijuana. The total amount of cocaine purchased came to 10 3/8 ounces; 5 3/4 ounces of marijuana and 1 7/8 ounces of methamphetamine also were purchased. Simon said the investigation was run so that all but five of the purchases were made off Times property.

Simon said the emphasis of the investigation was on those who actually sold the drugs.

“They (The Times) weren’t interested in prosecuting users,” he said. “They wanted people who were dealing drugs if they existed. None of these are the French Connection, but it’s typical street-dealing type of stuff.”

In a separate announcement, Tom Johnson, publisher and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Times, said the 20 people who were arrested were being suspended, along with four other employees. Johnson said the suspensions of the 24 employees were not related to the arrest warrants, but were a result of The Times’ own internal investigation.

Johnson released a statement to all Times employees in which he said that the newspaper received information several months ago regarding possible drug dealing at the Orange County plant.

‘Only Responsible Course’

“We took the only responsible course open to us and contacted a law enforcement agency,” he said. “ . . . These events are disturbing and distressing. However, with estimates for substance abuse nationwide growing yearly, the reality is that all sectors of society are affected by this problem. Because of our deep concern for each of you, The Times cannot and will not tolerate the possession or sale of illegal drugs on Times property.”

The Times offers its employees a variety of programs to deal with drug abuse. They include an Employee Counseling Service that provides confidential and professional assessment and referral, a substance-abuse information line staffed by Times volunteers who have experienced dependency-related problems, a support-group program for people who are recovering from substance abuse or have abuse-related problems in their families, and an in-house drug abuse education program.

Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates said that The Times’ situation was “typical as what we have found in other corporate structures. Any large corporation probably (has) between 15 and 25% of its employees that use drugs, whether on the job or not. I don’t think the Times is any worse or better off than anywhere else.”

List of Those Arrested

Those arrested were David Louis Abbott, 29, of Anaheim; Michael Henry Adams, 37, of Huntington Beach; Albert Jean Armstrong, 54, of Gardena; Bruce Billingsly, 38, of Huntington Beach; Carlito Favila Carles, 32, of Mission Viejo; Shawn Daugherty, 33, of Riverside; Francisco Garcia, 46, of Costa Mesa; Theartis Grigsby, 44, of Upland; Alfred Leon Hawkins, 31, of Anaheim; Paul Edward Hendricks, 34, of Diamond Bar.

Also arrested were: Russell Karl Keidel, 30, of Huntington Beach; Rudolph Abel Maduena, 47, of Santa Ana; Darian Madison Martinez, 36, of Costa Mesa; Gary David Maxsom, 38, of Corona; David Allen Moore, 35, of Costa Mesa; Henry Fitzgerald Nelson, 24, of Santa Ana; William James Perry, 28, of Anaheim; Donald Rivadeneyre, 30, of Whittier; Michael Benjamin Slettebo, 26, of Chino, and Carlton Allen Twine, 30, of Westminster.