Man Admits Taking Down Roberti’s Campaign Signs

A Van Nuys businessman has admitted to police that he removed two dozen of state Sen. David Roberti’s campaign signs and became embroiled in a dispute with a Roberti aide but denied he was acting in concert with the senator’s political foes.

Eric Schwartz told Van Nuys Division LAPD detectives that he and his three sons, ages 11, 14 and 16, took down the signs in his neighborhood on Feb. 27 and brought them to the home of Shirley Wechsler, Roberti’s campaign treasurer.

Schwartz, 44, said he removed the signs because they were ugly “political graffiti” and because he disagrees with Roberti’s views about the efficacy of gun control in preventing crime.

Roberti (D-Van Nuys) is the target of a recall campaign largely led by gun rights activists.

Wechsler’s husband, Arthur Forcier, a college professor, had filed a police report complaining that the people involved in the sign incident warned him “to stay away from the window” and nearly struck him with their car when they drove away from his Studio City home.

Although the Los Angeles Police Department had the car’s license plate number, it was Schwartz who stepped forward to contact the police, Officer Doug Tanaka said.

“He wanted to give his side of the story,” Tanaka said.

Schwartz has denied he nearly struck Forcier with his car and said he only made threatening remarks to Forcier after the 63-year-old political science professor threatened one of Schwartz’s sons.

Because Forcier has decided not to pursue the matter, the case is now closed, Tanaka said.

Schwartz said he now regrets removing the signs because he said it embroiled him in a “cheap political trick” in which the Roberti camp was made to look like the victim of “political thugs.”

Roberti aides contacted the media about the incident at Wechsler’s home and suggested that it was part of the ongoing campaign of intimidation being waged against the senator. Roberti has repeatedly characterized his recall opponents as “bully boys” who are trying to oust him because of his authorship of a 1989 law banning military-style, semiautomatic weapons.

“With me at 142 pounds and my three young sons, I don’t think we could be confused with thugs,” said Schwartz, who says he enjoys sport shooting with his sons and is a member of the National Rifle Assn.

Besides, Schwartz said, it was Forcier who acted badly. Schwartz, who owns a skylight manufacturing concern in Anaheim, said Forcier denounced him and his sons as “(expletive) Nazis” after they knocked on the door and explained that they were returning the signs to Wechsler, whose name and home address appeared on them.