Montgomery Plans New Action on Plea

With a new sentencing date looming, former Moorpark City Councilman Scott Montgomery will try again to withdraw his guilty plea to a misdemeanor conflict of interest charge, his attorney said Friday.

Montgomery has been waiting to be sentenced since pleading guilty in October after admitting he had accepted a $3,500 loan from an executive of a trash company that was negotiating a waste-hauling contract with Moorpark.

At Friday’s hearing, Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell Jr. set Montgomery’s sentencing for May 13.

But defense attorney James Farley, who was assigned to the case two weeks ago, said he plans to use new evidence as a basis for having Montgomery’s plea withdrawn.

In January, Municipal Court Judge Thomas Hutchins refused to allow the withdrawal despite Montgomery’s claims that prosecutors coerced him into pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit.

Since then a succession of Montgomery lawyers has reviewed the evidence. Farley said he obtained this week detailed notes and taped interviews from the district attorney’s office that support another motion for the withdrawal.

“I don’t know yet what that motion will contain, but I have an investigator working on it right now,” Farley said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Aveis said the motion would fail.

“One way or another [Montgomery] is going to be sentenced,” Aveis said.

Montgomery faces a maximum 3 1/2 years in prison and $10,000 fine.