St. John Hospitalized After Possible Attempt at Committing Suicide

Juanita St. John, a longtime friend and business associate of Mayor Tom Bradley, was hospitalized for an apparent suicide attempt a few hours after she was convicted of felony embezzlement and tax evasion charges, San Marino police said Friday.

Officials at Methodist Hospital of Southern California in Arcadia confirmed Friday that St. John was hospitalized there, but declined to give any information about her condition.

However, her attorney, Victor Sherman, said he had talked to St. John Friday afternoon “and she’s doing fine. . . .

“It was just an accident,” Sherman said. “She was chipper, happy, said she had no intention of taking her life. . . . She should be out no later than tomorrow.”

According to San Marino Police Capt. Hal Havens, St. John’s daughter, Kathy Mendenhall, called the police station at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday to say that her 59-year-old mother had tried to kill herself.

Police units and paramedics were immediately dispatched to St. John’s home in the 500 block of Berkeley Avenue, Havens said.

“I believe she had taken some kind of prescription medication,” Havens said. “I understand that she was conscious.”

Havens said he did not know what kind of drug St. John had taken, but Sherman said he understood that it was “something for anxiety.”

The captain said that from statements Mendenhall made after talking to her mother, investigators concluded that St. John had attempted suicide because she was very upset by the verdicts about five hours earlier in Los Angeles Superior Court.

After five days of deliberations, a jury found St. John guilty of stealing $5,000 from a UCLA-based anti-genocide group that she had served as treasurer. In addition, she was convicted of two felony counts of filing false income tax returns involving $125,000 in unreported income. The convictions could result in sentences of up to four years in state prison.

The jury deadlocked on a central charge that she stole $178,000 from a city-funded Africa trade group she headed. The panel also failed to reach a verdict on another tax evasion charge.

St. John gasped and grimaced as the guilty verdicts were read, and Sherman said afterward that she had been shocked by the verdicts and “was obviously distressed.”

St. John has continued to insist she is innocent and has said the case against her was political, because of her longstanding professional and business relationships with the mayor.

Bradley testified as a character witness during the trial, acknowledging his ties to St. John.

He served on the board of the her African Trade group. Her daughter, Mendenhall, works in Bradley’s office, and his daughter, Phyllis, once worked for St. John. Bradley has been a partner in a Riverside land venture with St. John, Mendenhall and other investors.

Despite financial problems in recent years that included a collection agency judgment against her, an insurance company suit against her husband over a bounced $65,000 check and a mortgage company’s threat to foreclose on their home, St. John and her invalid husband, John, have managed to stay financially afloat.

Records show that the couple have fended off creditors by borrowing money, mostly against their equity in the spacious, Spanish-style home.