Publisher Who Tore Down Real Estate Signs Faces New Allegations

In an effort to persuade a judge to impose a harsher sentence, prosecutors said Friday that they will raise new criminal allegations at the sentencing hearing of an Acton newspaper publisher who has admitted tearing down hundreds of real estate signs.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating two complaints that implicate Charles Brink, publisher of the weekly Acton Vanguard News, in the recent theft of real estate signs and vandalism that caused $8,250 damage to a construction site. Deputies searched Brink’s home and newspaper offices last week as part of the investigation.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Rhodes declined to comment Friday on whether new charges will be filed against Brink, a slow-growth activist who has admitted tearing down several hundred real estate signs this summer. Brink denied the new allegations Friday.

“I’m completely innocent,” Brink said. “This is essentially a set of trumped-up charges.”

But Rhodes said she will raise the new allegations at Brink’s sentencing hearing next Friday in Lancaster Municipal Court in an effort to persuade the judge to impose a harsher sentence. Under state law, prosecutors can bring up uncharged offenses at sentencing hearings without having to offer conclusive evidence that the defendant is guilty of the new crimes, Rhodes said.

“It’s up to the judge how much weight to give it,” she said.

Brink faces a maximum sentence of one year in County Jail and $1,000 in fines and could be ordered to pay about $3,000 in restitution, Rhodes said. She said she will ask the judge to send Brink to jail, but would not specify the length of the sentence she plans to request.

Rhodes said the sheriff’s investigation began after an eyewitness reported seeing Brink remove two real estate signs Oct. 20 from the intersection of Soledad Canyon and Aliso Canyon roads in Acton.

Sheriff’s deputies then received a complaint from Jim Crow, owner of Pacific Hydrotech Corp., who told authorities that Brink called him and threatened to sabotage his equipment if he did not stop grading a road through a controversial 122-unit housing project in McHenry Canyon, Rhodes said. Crow is in the hospital and could not be reached for comment Friday.

Brink denied both allegations. He said he no longer removes real estate signs, which he considers a blight. Instead, he said he prefers to file lawsuits in small claims courts against people he believes are illegally posting the signs.

Brink acknowledged that he strongly opposes the housing project in McHenry Canyon and had published an editorial announcing that the Acton Town Council had appealed the project to the County Board of Supervisors.

But he said he called Crow only to warn him that an anonymous caller had phoned the newspaper with the threats.

Kirk Harnes, Pacific Hydrotech’s vice president, said that shortly after receiving the phone call Crow discovered that someone had vandalized the construction site north of Santiago Road, uprooting 90 surveyor stakes and breaking some of them and cutting the ignition wires on a backhoe and four other pieces of equipment. The damage was estimated at $8,250, he said.

Based on the complaints, sheriff’s deputies obtained a warrant and on Oct. 31 searched three vehicles used by Brink; his mother’s house in Acton, where Brink frequently spends the night; Brink’s house in Northridge, and his Acton newspaper offices.

They seized telephone bills, bank records and three photographs, according to documents filed in Lancaster Municipal Court.

Brink said in an interview that authorities broke the law by searching his newspaper offices.

Under state law, some information obtained by the media through confidential sources is protected from search and seizure.

Under prosecutors’ supervision, Rhodes said, deputies conducted only a “cursory search” of Brink’s newspaper offices, looking only for tools that could have been used to sabotage the construction site.

She said it was necessary to conduct a more thorough search of the Northridge house, where Brink has been publishing the Vanguard while his Acton facilities are renovated, because personal and newspaper records were commingled there.