CAMARILLO : Executive Sentenced to 45 Days in Jail

A trash-company executive was sentenced Monday to 45 days in jail and ordered to perform 360 hours of community service in connection with a drunk-driving conviction.

Municipal Judge Thomas J. Hutchins also placed Myron George Harrison of Camarillo on five years probation, suspended his license for a year and fined the 53-year-old defendant $2,800.

Harrison, chief financial officer of E.J. Harrison and Sons rubbish-collection firm, was convicted in October of 13 misdemeanors stemming from a March 26 drunk-driving wreck that left two people slightly injured.

Witnesses testified that Harrison left Santa Paula about 7:40 p.m. and sped down California 126. While on the highway, he knocked two cars off the road, then made a U-turn through oleander bushes in the center divider and struck two more cars, said Deputy Dist. Atty. David Lehr. Police arrested him in downtown Ventura, where he sideswiped four more cars.

Defense attorney Louis B. (Chuck) Samonsky argued that his client did not remember what happened because he was experiencing a hypoglycemic blackout that was aggravated by a hypothyroid condition and a 25-year-old bout with encephalitis.

Harrison refused to comment after Monday’s court hearing, but Samonsky said: “Mr. Harrison had something triggered by alcohol ingestion and rightfully has taken it upon himself to stop drinking.”

Samonsky called the incident “completely out of character” for the defendant.

Prosecutor Lehr called the sentence “a bit light.”

“I wanted at bare minimum 90 days (in jail),” Lehr said. “And, based on the jury’s finding, 180 was appropriate.”