SOUTHLAND : NAACP President Voted Out

Anthony Essex, the controversial president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP, was voted out of office by members in one of the largest turnouts ever for a chapter election, officials said today.

Challenger Joseph Duff, a Los Angeles lawyer, defeated Essex by a vote of 497 to 309 in Sunday night’s election in which 855 members cast ballots, said George Mallory, the chapter’s newly elected first vice president. During the campaign, Duff charged that Essex, a financial consultant, had been fired from a job as a bank loan officer because he had made loans to himself, his mother and a friend.