Jail Awaits Ex-Fire Captain Burned by Drug Addiction

By his own admission, former Ventura County Fire Capt. William Elliot Handy lived a double life for years. On Friday, it officially gave way to a third: jail inmate.

It was a long, hard fall for Handy, the father of three children and a 22-year veteran county firefighter who once received a commendation for wading into a swollen flood-control channel to pull a 9-year-old boy to safety.

That life was shattered along the way because of the other life that Handy lived--that of a drug dealer operating out of his former home in Newbury Park in a shadowy world of unsavory characters and sleepless nights.

And by Friday, as a Superior Court judge sentenced Handy to a year in jail on felony drug and weapons convictions, even those closest to the former hero were relieved to see the juggling act come to an end.

“My entire family, in fact, looks back on this experience as not a tragedy, but a blessing in disguise,” wrote Handy’s daughter, Shana Rae Handy, in a letter to Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele.

For his part, Handy, 49, was apologetic for the mistakes he made. But he also found cause for some hope. In his own letter to the judge, the twice-divorced father of three said his fall from grace has finally driven him to sobriety.

Handy told the court that he has not had a drink or used drugs since his arrest in December 1994, when he was a captain at the Piru fire station.

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Since then, he also has founded an organization called the Firefighters for Recovery Program.

Handy, who has been free on bail for most of the time since his arrest, now lives in Oxnard and is eligible for a work furlough program while serving his sentence.

If accepted into the program, he will be allowed to go to work during the day but will spend his nights in jail.

While he and family members held out hope for the future in their letters to court officials, the sentencing Friday focused more on the realities of Handy’s past.

Court documents showed a long, gradual descent by Handy into the world of drugs even as he was simultaneously climbing through the ranks of the Fire Department.

As his drug use continued, however, the bizarre behavior that came with it became a topic of open discussion among colleagues.

“Co-workers reported that for the past several years they thought the defendant might be using drugs,” the probation report said. “He exhibited erratic sleeping patterns, sleeping frequently at work . . . interspersed with periods in which he never seemed to sleep.”

The 1994 drug arrest was not Handy’s first. He was kicked out of the Navy in 1965 after he was convicted of helping smuggle three pounds of marijuana out of Mexico, his probation report showed.

And Handy told probation officials that his drug use had continued after that. By 1975, he said, he had begun using cocaine daily. That habit gave way to methamphetamine three years ago, which he said he was snorting a gram a day at the time of his arrest.

“He was using a significant amount of methamphetamine daily, which means he was under the influence of drugs while fighting fires, ordering evacuations, responding to accidents and deaths and participating in school programs where small children were taught to revere the honesty and stature of all firefighters,” Handy’s probation report stated.

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Handy, who said he sold small amounts of methamphetamine to support his habit, was finally tripped up when one of his customers was arrested. Seeking leniency, the customer gave authorities Handy’s name and agreed to participate in a sting.

He was arrested in a strip mall parking lot after selling the informant $400 worth of methamphetamine. A search of his Newbury Park home turned up more of the drug and an array of chemicals and devices used to make bombs. Aside from the drug convictions, Handy pleaded no contest to possessing an illegal explosive device and having a concealed weapon.

In addition to the letters from friends and relatives in Judge Steele’s file on Friday, there was a note in Handy’s probation report that said he now “seems truly interested in . . . making a new life for himself.”

But not all the letters submitted to the judge were so supportive.

Some of Handy’s neighbors said they had complained to police for years about the “flop house” for drug users he ran out of his home in Newbury Park.

“He is not the model citizen that you might think he is,” wrote neighbor Paula Pfeifle. “Our neighborhood was fed up with Mr. Handy and his lifestyle when finally the right phone call was made to the right person.

“We are glad that he is finally behind bars.”