Wiser Says She Didn’t ‘Willfully Disobey’ Judge : Brea Councilwoman Reflects on Property Dispute, Night in Jail

Friday night was a first for Brea Councilwoman Kathryn E. Wiser.

The 53-year-old elementary school teacher spent the night in jail, possibly the first of several nights.

“It was cold,” said Wiser during an interview Saturday morning at Orange County Jail. “I think I was in the holding tank until about 2:15 [a.m.].”

Wiser also expressed a less-than-warm feeling for the court system that put her in jail in the first place. Superior Court Judge John H. Smith Jr. on Friday ordered her to spend 10 days in jail or pay a $2,000 fine for contempt of court for violating a court order that banned her from interfering with the sale of a commercial building in Brea.

Wiser’s husband, Douglas “Bud” Wiser, 53, also was jailed before either of them even got a chance to complain, explain or pay the fine, she said. He was ordered to pay a $25,000 fine or spend 25 days in jail.

Both were released Saturday night after posting bond.

“No way did I ever say, ‘I’m not going to pay,’ ” said Kathryn Wiser, dressed in her jail-issue blue jumpsuit and a gray sweater. “No way we would have chosen to spend this time in jail. . . . But all of a sudden the handcuffs were on and we were out the door.”

As for her predicament, Wiser, a teacher in Fullerton and Brea for more than 20 years, describes it as an unfair culmination of “an incredible chain of events.”

She said the messy affair began in 1989 when she and her husband decided to buy a 35,000-square-foot building at 2800 Saturn St. across the street from the 4,000-square-foot building where Douglas Wiser’s insurance business was located.

The smaller building, at 2715 Saturn St., also housed a crane leasing business and a car repair shop, she said.

The larger building would give Douglas Wiser more room for his business, as well as additional space to house his extensive classic-car collection, which at one time numbered 32 cars, she said.

At that time, the larger building had not been occupied and was owned by the Resolution Trust Corp., which had taken it over from a developer who never sold it, Kathryn Wiser said.

To finance the purchase and remodeling, the Wisers borrowed $1.65 million in 1989 from Pacific Savings Bank--which later became Pacific Inland Bank--in a loan that was to have been guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, she said.

“We pledged our small building, the large building and just about everything we owned to get that loan,” she said.

Wiser said they did not get the full amount of the loan and the bank foreclosed in December 1990. She said they have filed a lawsuit contesting the foreclosure.

In July, during the course of the lawsuit, however, Smith ordered the Wisers not to interfere with an impending sale of the building.

“I ordered them not to interfere in any way with anyone who intended to purchase the property,” Smith said Saturday. “They didn’t obey my order.”

Wiser said Saturday that she did talk with two city officials about the sale, but she insisted it was only an inquiry made in general terms and not meant to interfere with the sale.

She also said she thought escrow had closed.

“I didn’t think that I had disobeyed his order . . . I, in no way, interfered with the sale,” she said. “I can look anybody in the eye and say I did not willfully disobey a court order.”

However, Smith said Kathryn Wiser violated his order three times and Douglas Wiser violated it five times.

Kathryn Wiser said part of her problem could be her standing in Brea. She was elected to the council in 1992 but has won few friends among city employees, she said.

“The city of Brea has no love for me,” she said. “They wish I was out of there.”