Case Against Health Center Head Dropped, Temporarily

The district attorney’s office abruptly dropped criminal charges against a prominent Val Verde community activist at a preliminary hearing Thursday, but announced new ones will be filed next week.

Edwin Seth Brown, director of Samuel Dixon Family Health Center, was charged with preparing and presenting documents to a court that credited two friends with performing more court-imposed community service hours than they had actually completed, and with attempting to mislead the court about where the two men completed their service.

Jay Kapac and John Milton Campbell were ordered to work off their community service at the clinic, court records show, but Kapac told Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies that he did most of his work at Brown’s home.

Terry L. White, the deputy district attorney supervising the case, said he dropped the charges and will refile them because he decided to try Brown and Campbell together.

“There was a companion case going on,” said White, the lead prosecutor in the 1992 Rodney G. King trial. “We are going to present the same [evidence] we would have today, but it’s just simpler to try them together.”

Ashley Posner, one of Brown’s attorneys, contended the case was dropped because “they didn’t have enough evidence to make their case.”

Brown, 44, said he is “amazed by the whole process.”

Brown has repeatedly denied the charges and hinted at a conspiracy against him. “This case is an attack on me in order to destroy my life’s work in this community,” he said.

Brown’s arrest last December shocked many in the Santa Clarita Valley. In 1994, he was voted Man of the Year by neighboring Castaic, served on its Town Council and remains popular with many residents there. At each of Brown’s courtroom appearances, half a dozen of his supporters have been present.

“Edwin Brown has done nothing but good for the community,” said Ruth Newhall, former editor of the Newhall Signal and a well-known figure in the Santa Clarita Valley. “From what I’ve been able to find out, some people are after Edwin Brown because he is black and because he is gay and because he is well thought of in the community.”

White said that after he files charges next week, he expects a preliminary hearing to be held sometime in April.