S. Pasadena Officer Involved in Crash Is Fired

South Pasadena officials Thursday fired a police officer whose hit-and-run crash was allegedly covered up by his colleagues and led to two outside investigations of the embattled agency.

Scott D. Ziegler had been on paid leave since criminal charges were filed against him in late August. On Nov. 1, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of hit-and-run driving, a year after driving a Camaro down Pasadena Avenue and clipping a parked Honda.

The car was registered to Ziegler’s father-in-law, former Mayor Ted Shaw. Although Ziegler was fired from the department days after the crash by a captain serving as acting chief, he was rehired when Police Chief Thomas Mahoney returned from vacation.

City officials said Mahoney promised them that he would present the case to the district attorney’s office and that Ziegler would pay the owner of the damaged car. Neither apparently occurred, officials said.

After The Times reported on the case this summer, Mahoney went on paid leave and filed a workers’ compensation claim against the city, and the district attorney’s office and a private investigative firm began ongoing probes of the Police Department.

Ziegler’s attorney, Darryl Mounger, did not return a call for comment Thursday. After city officials last month told Ziegler they intended to fire him, Mounger promised to contest the move. Ziegler also is named in a civil rights lawsuit filed against the city by the owner of the damaged car.