Simi Valley Man Pleads Guilty to Bigamy

With his head hung low before a Municipal Court judge, a Simi Valley man pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge of bigamy for being married to three women at the same time.

Lloyd Wetzel, 29, faces up to a year in County Jail for the crime, which his attorney blamed in part on a lingering mental disorder stemming from his childhood. “He is a little slow mentally,” Deputy Public Defender Christina Briles said outside the courtroom after Wetzel entered his guilty plea. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to drop a second charge of witness intimidation.

Authorities say Wetzel, a security guard and former truck driver, was married to three women simultaneously. Briles said he married his first wife in Las Vegas in 1987, his second wife in the San Fernando Valley in 1990 and his third wife in Ventura County earlier this year.

Only the third wife--Moorpark waitress Sandra Lemich--pressed charges. When Lemich challenged him about the previous marriages, Wetzel allegedly threatened to kill her during a confrontation at a bar in the San Fernando Valley.