Newspaperman Faces Charge on Cocaine

The co-owner of the Antelope Valley Press was in possession of more than a gram of cocaine when he was arrested for forcing a telephone company employee to leave his property at gunpoint, the Los Angeles district attorney’s office said Monday.

William W. Odett, 45, will face felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a controlled substance, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen L. Cooley. Odett was also charged with two misdemeanors--brandishing a firearm and delaying a law enforcement officer, Cooley said.

The charges stem from an incident last Thursday in which Odett pointed a shotgun at the head of a Pacific Bell employee who was approaching the front porch of his Palmdale home to deliver a telephone directory, sheriff’s deputies said. Odett threatened to shoot the woman and walked her to the street with the gun pointed at the back of her head, they said.

Deputies went to Odett’s house and asked him to come out unarmed, which he did after about 45 minutes. He was then arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

When Odett was searched at the sheriff’s station, deputies found what appeared to be a small quantity of cocaine in his possession, said Sgt. Bobby Denham of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

“It was in his pocket,” Denham said. “He claimed it was some type of medication he put in a bag to ease his pain.”

The drug charges were not added until tests Friday showed the substance was 1.67 grams of cocaine, Cooley said.

Odett was released on $15,000 bail and is to be arraigned on June 11 at Antelope Municipal Court in Lancaster, Cooley said.

Odett and his brother, Lamont Odett Jr., are part owners of the privately held publication, said Editor Larry Grooms. William Odett also serves as treasurer of Antelope Valley Newspapers Inc., which owns the paper, Grooms said.