Brea Mayor Will Not Withdraw His Guilty Plea : Courts: Ronald E. Isles’ decision means he may have to resign, according to state law. The city will have to decide what action it will take.

Brea Mayor Ronald E. Isles on Thursday declined to withdraw his guilty plea to misdemeanor charges of conflict of interest and failure to fully report financial holdings, setting the stage for his possible removal from office.

Isles, 54, pleaded guilty last week to seven misdemeanor counts stemming from his conduct as a council member between 1989 and 1991. But he had the chance to ask to withdraw that plea after prosecutors discovered this week that state law may require him to immediately resign. The mayor said he entered the plea under the assumption that he would be able to fulfill the final six weeks of his term in office.

During a court hearing Thursday, Isles’ attorney said the plea would not be taken back.

“Withdrawing the plea would not be in his best interest,” attorney Thomas Avdeef said.

He said Isles only wanted to complete his term in office so he did not have to “go out with the stigma of a conviction when in fact he hasn’t done anything wrong. . . . It’s too bad it worked out this way.”

Isles, who did not appear in court Thursday, said he was angry that Deputy Dist. Atty. James Joseph Mulgrew discovered the state law after a plea agreement had been reached.

“The district attorney’s action is reprehensible,” Isles said in an interview. “He acted in bad faith. . . . The D.A. has had two years of near-Gestapo tactics in investigating me, my business and practice.”

Mulgrew and Avdeef agreed that the burden is now on Brea.

“The city is going to have to decide what the law requires,” Mulgrew said. “On the face of it, his plea appears to be grounds for the office to be vacated.”

Assistant City Manager Tim O’Donnell said that he was surprised that Brea would “have to be the moving party in this. . . . It seems incredible to me.”

O’Donnell said city officials will have to consult with the district attorney’s office to determine what steps, if any, they will take against Isles. If the city opts to do nothing, Mulgrew said he was uncertain what the district attorney might be required to do.

Isles said that he, too, will have to consult with his attorney to determine whether he would challenge any attempt by the city to remove him from office.

Under the agreement, Isles pleaded guilty to three counts involving action he took that benefited entities in which he had a financial interest and four involving loans that he failed to report on economic-interest disclosure forms.

The mayor was placed on three years’ probation and ordered to pay fines and assessments totaling $13,500, according to court documents. Also, the agreement states that Isles cannot be a candidate for elective office or act as a lobbyist for four years.

Fourteen other counts against him were dismissed in the plea bargain.

Isles, who was elected to the City Council in 1980 and 1988 and twice served as mayor, still contends that he did nothing wrong, saying that he might have been a little careless in his paperwork when he failed to report the loans and that he reaped no personal financial gain from his actions on the council.

“These were Mickey Mouse misdemeanor charges,” he said Thursday.

Isles’ guilty plea was entered under a provision of law that allows him to state that he does not admit having done anything wrong but agrees to plead guilty because he feels it is in his interest.