Pierce Looks Into Loan of Machine

Pierce College officials are investigating why an $18,000 silo press owned by the campus farm was lent to a private Ventura County ranch for more than two years.

Acting on a tip, campus police found the silo press on March 6 in Moorpark, said Capt. Ken Renolds of the Los Angeles Community College Police Department.

As a result, campus officials placed farm manager Richard Melickian on paid leave while authorities investigate why the equipment--which is used to make corn fodder--was lent without authorization by Pierce officials.

Darrell Vienna, an attorney for Melickian, said his client is innocent.

“I’m confident he will be exonerated,” Vienna said. “Right now, he is absolutely dumbfounded by the allegations.”

According to Vienna, Melickian retained his legal services a month ago to retrieve tens of thousands of dollars in back pay and vacation days he was allegedly owed. Vienna described the investigation of his client by the college as an “extraordinary coincidence.”

Pierce’s acting president, Jack Fujimoto, said he knew nothing about Melickian’s attempts to retrieve back pay and contends that the investigation is a legitimate inquiry.

“We don’t know what kind of deals have been made by whom and with what authority,” Fujimoto said.

Renolds said that shortly after his office received a tip, two officers went to the ranch in the 15000 block of Tierra Rejada Road. They found the silo press with the school’s inventory tag still attached.

Renolds declined to identify the owner of the property. He said that before a piece of campus equipment is lent or borrowed, a request form must be approved and signed by a department chairman or area dean.

No such form was recorded for the silo press, Renolds said. It is also unusual for equipment to be lent for more than two years, he added.

As a result of the investigation, Melickian has been ordered to remove a herd of privately owned cattle and his own horses from campus property.

“We don’t know what arrangement he made to keep his horses here in the first place,” Fujimoto said. “That’s one of the things we’re trying to figure out.”