Councilman Censured Over Letter to Judge : Lawndale: Colleagues act against Lagerquist for using city stationery in requesting leniency for an ex-consultant convicted of child molestation.

The Lawndale City Council has voted to censure Councilman Norm Lagerquist for writing a letter to a judge on city stationery seeking leniency for a former political consultant convicted of child molestation.

During a City Council meeting Thursday, council members questioned the ethics of Lagerquist’s April, 1992, letter in which he asked Long Beach Superior Court Judge Arthur Jean Jr. to give a light sentence to Timothy M. Carey. Carey, 35, had pleaded no contest to felony charges that he molested the 12-year-old daughter of a family friend.

The council voted 3 to 2 to censure Lagerquist, with the councilman and his lone ally, Councilman Bill Johnson, opposing the move. The censure resolution will be read at the council’s next meeting, on Nov. 18.

The three council members supporting the censure--Mayor Harold E. Hoffman, Nancy Marthens and Larry Rudolph--also backed calls for Lagerquist to resign, but he refused to step down.

“I support the public censure of Councilman Lagerquist, and I also support the public in asking for Councilman Lagerquist’s resignation,” Marthens said.

Lagerquist said he regretted using city stationery, adding that he didn’t know about the ordinance that prohibits the use of the city letterhead for personal matters.

Nevertheless, he defended the contents of the letter, calling his detractors “judgmental.”

“I wrote a letter for a person who was severely grieved by what he did,” said Lagerquist, whose four-year term expires in April, 1996. “It’s time to stop trying to run people’s reputation through the mud.”

Johnson said he objected to the censure because he believes Lagerquist’s apology was adequate.

Lagerquist’s letter, which requested that Carey receive no prison sentence, was one of several that the judge considered before sentencing Carey, who was a volunteer in Lagerquist’s 1990 council campaign. Carey faced a maximum 12 years in prison, but was sentenced to five years’ probation, 500 hours of community service and six months in County Jail. It is unclear how much time, if any, he served.

The council took up the censure matter after seeing newspaper reports about other letters written on Carey’s behalf, including one on Redondo Beach official stationery from Mayor Brad Parton. Parton said last week that he did not write or sign the specific letter sent to the judge. But Parton stopped short of calling the letter a forgery, saying it probably resulted from miscommunication between him and Carey, who worked on Parton’s mayoral campaign in 1989.

Several residents spoke against Lagerquist at the meeting.

“How dare you request no (jail) time for a convicted child molester?” asked Lawndale resident Karen Hesse, who said she was raped when she was 14. “You are a disgrace to the city, and I demand your resignation.”

The council does not have the power to remove one of its members. A recall election is the only way to dismiss an elected city official from office.

In his letter, Lagerquist said Carey “is an extremely talented person who had made and is making a contribution to others.”

Carey “accepts responsibility for the action he committed and is disgusted by it,” Lagerquist wrote. “A prison sentence would only serve to eliminate any opportunity for him to remain useful to society. The stigma of a prison sentence could end his career.”