Sheriff’s Son Arrested After Drugs Found

The son of Ventura County Sheriff Larry Carpenter was arrested just before Thanksgiving on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine, court records show.

But 19-year-old Joshua Jarrett Carpenter has never been charged in the case, in part, sources say, because deputies conducted an improper search and found only a small amount of the drug.

Sheriff Carpenter said he was informed of the arrest that night, but made no effort to intervene on behalf of his son.

“I am absolutely unaware of any special treatment he received,” he said.

Joshua Carpenter, the youngest of the sheriff’s three children and his only son, spent a night in the Ventura County Jail after his Nov. 21 arrest.

At a court hearing Dec. 2, prosecutors asked for more time to complete the investigation, but a Ventura County Municipal Court judge denied the request, records show.

But the records don’t indicate whether the case was dismissed, and attorneys in the case couldn’t be reached for comment.

Carpenter was arrested after deputies with the department’s crime suppression unit spotted him with a group of youths out past curfew.

Several of the young men are known members of a skinhead gang, according to a report filed by Deputy Carlos Macias, who made the arrest.

Deputies searched Carpenter for weapons and for identification, the report said. Macias then looked inside Carpenter’s backpack, where he found a white container with 1/10th of a gram of methamphetamine, the report said.

Carpenter was taken to the Ventura County Jail where he was booked for possession of a controlled substance.

Sheriff Carpenter recalled the concern he and his wife felt when they received word of the arrest.

“That kind of phone call is the worst nightmare for a parent,” he said.

But Sheriff Carpenter said there wasn’t much his family could do. His son no longer lives at home.

“His mother and I love him,” he said. “We’ll try to be there for him, but he’s an adult and he has to make his own way through the system and through life.”

One department source said the case would not normally have gone as far as it did because the search was not properly done and the amount of methamphetamine was very small. But because Joshua Carpenter was the sheriff’s son the deputies felt they had to book him into the jail and file the case with the district attorney’s office.

Sheriff Carpenter said his son was represented in the case by the public defender’s office, but he had not spoken to his son recently.

Joshua Carpenter could not be reached for comment.

Times staff writer Chris Chi contributed to this story.