Nash Won’t Be Charged for Skimping on Sales Tax : Torrance: The ex-police chief underpaid the levy on 2 used cars he bought while in office. He made good on the debt, and the DMV won’t press the matter.

Quietly closing the books on a controversial case, the district attorney’s office has announced that it will not prosecute former Torrance Police Chief Donald E. Nash for failing to pay sufficient sales tax on two used cars he bought while in office.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s office said it will not prosecute Nash because he voluntarily paid the back taxes on the vehicles and because the state Department of Motor Vehicles has a practice of not seeking criminal charges against those who pay the DMV what they owe.

Although Nash declined comment, his attorney, Richard Shinee, said the 66-year-old former chief felt vindicated by the decision. “He wants to get on with his retirement and his life,” Shinee said, “as he is more than entitled to do.”

Although it announced its decision only last Friday, records and interviews show that the district attorney’s office all but concluded three months ago that it would not prosecute Nash on misdemeanor charges of failing to pay sufficient sales tax on the used cars. Further, records show that in one case, a one-year statute of limitations on prosecuting Nash expired March 28, which was 10 weeks before Reiner’s office announced its decision.

The long delay in announcing the decision marked another odd twist in the now-concluded probe of Nash, an inquiry that was characterized by apparent leaks, lengthy delays and even, according to one former councilman, political pressure by the district attorney for Nash to step down. Last year, former Torrance Councilman Tim Mock charged that Reiner’s office had “basically threatened” Nash with a continuing investigation unless he retired.

But just as Reiner’s office previously denied that it pressured Nash to resign, spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons this week dismissed the notion that prosecutors delayed their announcement about the Nash case for political purposes, such as Reiner’s June 2 battle for reelection.

“That’s B.S. (The election) had nothing to do with this,” Gibbons said Monday. “This thing has been bouncing around for a while. It just took time, that’s all.”

Last June, Nash stepped down after more than 20 years as chief of a department where he had worked since the 1950s. In resigning, Nash cited health problems.

But Nash’s resignation also followed disclosure of a district attorney’s investigation into his purchase of a 1987 Jaguar and its understated purchase price in a registration form filed with the DMV. The car, impounded in a drug case and later released, was sold to Nash by the brother of an alleged Colombian drug dealer for $25,500. But Nash first reported the price as $17,449, the amount of one of two payments he made on the car.

Although Nash subsequently paid the full tax on the vehicle and declared his original payment as an oversight, Deputy Dist. Atty. Reid Rose said in a March 4 memorandum that prosecutors do not know why Nash paid the proper amount only one month after the district attorney’s investigation began in October, 1990.

“However, there was general knowledge of our investigation regarding the 1987 Jaguar within the Torrance police community,” Reid wrote in a memo to Roger Gunson, head deputy of the district attorney’s special investigations division.

In March of last year, about the time Nash announced his decision to retire but before it took effect, the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute Nash on the charge of filing a false purchase price on the Jaguar.

In his recent memo, Rose wrote: “It was felt that the evidence was insufficient to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Nash intentionally understated the purchase price of the vehicle at the time the vehicle was registered.”

But after that case was considered closed, Rose added in his memo, DMV investigator Jerry Galbreath’s determined that Nash and his wife, Rita, had also registered a 1957 Thunderbird, declaring its purchase price as $1,100.

Galbreath later interviewed the car’s previous owner, who told him she had sold the car to the Nashes for $11,000.

Six days after that conversation, according to Rose’s memo, Nash’s attorney sent the proper sales tax on the car to the state.

Because it was not then publicly known that that vehicle’s purchase was under investigation, Rose said, Galbreath again contacted the car’s previous owner to ask if she had told Nash about the probe.

“She indicated she had not been in contact with either Donald or Rita Nash,” Rose wrote, adding, “There is no reason to believe that she informed Mr. Nash about the subject of our investigation.”

Although Nash, through his attorney, declined to be interviewed by the district attorney’s office, Rose’s memo cites several of Nash’s comments to reporters early last year about the inaccurate purchase price of the Thunderbird. Further, Rose noted that Nash claimed to have no knowledge of the new criminal probe.

Thus, Rose wrote: “There is no direct evidence to refute his assertion of making a voluntary payment” of taxes on the actual purchase price of the car.

Shinee said this week that the former chief voluntarily paid the back taxes on the Thunderbird after the investigation into the Jaguar led him to review all the transactions on both cars. “There was no leaking to him or anything like that,” Shinee said. “It was just part of his concern that everything be done correctly.”

Although Rose’s March 4 memo does not establish a firm recommendation on the Nash case, it concludes with a reference to a conversation the previous day with DMV Director Frank Zolin. In that conversation, Rose wrote, Zolin said it was the DMV’s policy to seek voluntary compliance from car owners on unpaid taxes. And because there was no evidence proving Nash had done anything but that, Rose wrote, Zolin concluded that no further action seemed warranted.

Two months later, in a letter to Zolin, Rose said the district attorney’s office also had concluded that filing criminal charges against Nash would be a discriminatory prosecution based on the DMV’s policy.

“It is our conclusion that the law does not permit us to treat Mr. Nash differently that other members of the general public,” Rose wrote Zolin.

Although originally awaiting a response to that letter before announcing its decision, the district attorney’s office said it chose to make its decision public when it had not received a response from Zolin.

When word of the decision reached City Hall, Mayor Katy Geissert said: “I’m glad that this is behind Don Nash. Certainly it’s been very stressful, and he’s not only financially paid for his error, but I’m sure he’s suffered considerable anxiety because of it, and embarrassment.”

Meanwhile, the woman who sold Nash the Thunderbird in 1989 had a wholly different reaction to the announcement.

“What a bummer,” said Ida M. Pompa of San Marcos, a city in north San Diego County. Pompa said she thought that prosecutors should have filed charges against Nash because to do otherwise would show “if you’re above a common layman, you can get away with anything.”

As a police chief, Nash “should set an example to his men--don’t you think?” Pompa said. “It’s kind of disenchanting all the way around.”