Candidate Is Arrested, Then Elected

A sergeant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department was elected to the Palmdale City Council despite his arrest last week on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl, according to semifinal results released Wednesday.

Even though he lost a key endorsement and essentially shut down his campaign just days before Tuesday’s election, Sgt. Kevin Wright Carney narrowly finished second--by a margin of 49 votes--in a field of 13 candidates seeking two council seats.

Some absentee ballots remain to be counted and the final results won’t be available until Nov. 18, said the county registrar of voters. County officials said they do not know how many absentee ballots were left to count.

The 23-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, whose previous run for Palmdale mayor had been marred by similar allegations of sexual abuse, said his council victory was “bittersweet.”

“I’m very pleased at the results,” Carney said in an interview at his Palmdale home. “But at the same time, with all these other things going on, it’s hard to savor a victory.”

Sheriff’s detectives arrested Carney, 48, on Friday after the girl told authorities Carney had molested her. He denied the allegations Wednesday. No charges have been filed but the arrest caused Assemblyman George Runner Jr. (R-Lancaster) to publicly rescind his endorsement of Carney in the nonpartisan race.

Carney’s campaign also decided to stop making phone calls and putting up posters over the weekend because of the arrest, campaign managers said.

Although some Palmdale voters were shocked to learn that Carney had eked out a win in Tuesday’s election, others said they didn’t think the allegations mattered.

“How do we know he’s guilty? We don’t,” said Maurice McGowan, a 72-year-old knitting instructor who had voted for Carney. “Kids will say anything these days. Until there’s proof, I won’t believe it.”

Carney said absentee ballots mailed in before he was arrested helped him win. Carney finished first in absentee ballots, garnering 23.4% of those counted to date, compared with his 13.2% of the overall vote, according to county election officials.

Third-place finisher Sandy Corrales refused to concede defeat on Wednesday, saying that she awaited the final election results before giving up. Corrales, a graphic designer, said Carney should have dropped out of the race because of the allegations.

“I wouldn’t have kept running if I had been facing something so heinous and disturbing,” Corrales said.

Mike Dispenza, an insurance salesman, took the most votes in the race for the four-year City Council seats with 18.2% or 2,806 of approximately 7,700 votes.

The position is a part-time job that pays $600 per month. There are five seats on the council, including the mayor.

At a small news conference Wednesday in front of Palmdale City Hall, Carney shied away from discussing criminal allegations and tried to focus on his plans. He will try to increase public safety, he said, and lead an effort to build a hospital in Palmdale, a city with a population of 120,000 and no major medical facility.

Carney said during the interview at his home that he may retire soon from the Sheriff’s Department and that he will vacate his seat on the Antelope Valley Union School District board at about the same time he is sworn in as a council member on Dec. 1.

When pressed by reporters about the molestation allegations, he professed his innocence and said the accusations had been fabricated by political enemies.

“The root [of the allegations] is that there are certain people who don’t want to see the balance of power shift in the city of Palmdale,” he said.

James Allen, 35, a motivational speaker, said, “They pulled this on him two years ago. . . . I think people saw through it this time. . . . It made me want to vote for him even more.”

Sheriff’s officials deny that the allegations were politically motivated. Carney is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 22 for arraignment.

If convicted of a felony, Carney would be removed from office, said Barbara La Fata, a city spokeswoman. City election rules bar those convicted of felonies from holding office.

This is not the first time during an election that Carney has been accused of molestation. In a campaign for Palmdale mayor in 1997--and 10 days before the election--two young girls accused Carney of molesting them, according to a sheriff’s spokesman and Palmdale politicians.

Charges were never filed in that case, and Carney lost the election by more than 20% to incumbent Mayor Jim Ledford, who won reelection on Tuesday.

* ELECTIONS: Stories on B6, Southland results on B7