COSTA MESA : Gadfly’s Sentence Extended in Dispute

A judge extended by five months a sentence for Costa Mesa gadfly Sid Soffer after determining that he violated probation a second time in a case involving his rental property.

The hearing this week was the latest of several held during the last 15 years in the city’s battle to get Soffer to bring his property at 540 Bernard St. in compliance with building codes.

Soffer has appealed the sentence issued by Municipal Judge Susanne S. Shaw, who first handed down a six-month term, with five months stayed. On Monday, Shaw found Soffer guilty of a second probation violation, so on Wednesday she lifted the stay to extend his sentence to the full six months.

He has not yet served any of the sentence.

She also had Soffer handcuffed when he raised his voice on the witness stand and threatened to charge him with contempt of court, but she later relented.

Soffer’s attorney, Paul G. Stark, immediately appealed the second probation violation conviction.

“She has got it so firm in her mind,” Soffer said Thursday, “that I’m a bad guy and all I’ve got is my own little world and that all I’m trying to do is draw attention to myself. Well, attention to do what?”

He was convicted in 1990 on seven counts of misdemeanor building code violations at the property, which he rents out. The lot has a single-family house, two apartments, two mobile homes and several vintage cars. Shaw ordered him to remove the trailers, one of which is occupied.

Soffer said Thursday that it will be difficult to move that tenant out because she is dying of lupus.

He also questioned the judge’s demand to remove the cars and clean up the property because he said they are not related to building code violations.

The city contends that Soffer never obtained permits to convert the garage and upstairs playroom into apartments and never received permits for the trailers.

Assistant City Atty. Jerry Scheer and private attorney Michelle Vadon-Rivera, who has handled the case against Soffer, could not be reached Thursday for comment.

Since being sentenced in January, Soffer has turned in the names of 101 homeowners who he maintains are also violating city building and housing codes. One of them is the city of Costa Mesa, for its police substation on 18th Street.

Tony C’de Baca, assistant director of the city’s Development Services Department, has said his department is looking into the complaints as they come in.