Councilman Plans to Plead Innocent : Snavely Wants to Change Plea in Case

Councilman Odell L. Snavely is seeking to withdraw his no-contest plea to charges that he harbored two teen-age girls at his toy store when they should have been in school.

Snavely, 71, plans to try to enter an innocent plea to the misdemeanor charges, according to papers filed last week in Huntington Park Municipal Court by his attorney, Walter Urban. Snavely is seeking to change his plea because he believes the district attorney’s office, which has recommended that Snavely be sent to jail for a year, reneged on a plea-bargaining agreement, Urban said.

Snavely, former mayor of the city, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.

Snavely “feels that the negotiations . . . that led up to his plea did not include the current district attorney’s position that he go to jail,” Urban said. The decision on whether to allow the change of plea will be up to court Commissioner J. Francis Spelman, who is handling the case.

Sentencing was postponed in April after Snavely’s former attorney, Kenton E. Krogstad, objected to a probation report that, he said, went beyond a plea of no contest to two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The report prepared by the Los Angeles County Probation Department included allegations that Snavely molested the girls, ages 13 and 14.

The charges stemmed from a six-month sheriff’s investigation after the two South Gate Junior High School students alleged that Snavely touched their breasts while they worked at his store, Del’s Gifts and Toys. Snavely has denied attempting to molest the girls, whom he paid to help clean up his store during school hours.

With Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Freeman saying there was not enough evidence to file molestation charges, Snavely pleaded no contest last February to the misdemeanor truancy charges.

Freeman could not be reached for comment, but he said during an April sentencing hearing that Snavely should receive “substantial” jail time and be placed on probation.