Ex-School Trustee Placed on Probation in Drug Case

Former Oxnard Elementary School District trustee Ray Gonzales was placed on three years probation Thursday and allowed to enter a work-release program after pleading guilty to transporting cocaine.

Gonzales, 42, has two weeks to find a job so that he can work off a 180-day sentence or else he must serve those days in County Jail.

As Ventura County Superior Court Judge Bruce A. Clark announced the ruling, Gonzales, dressed in a blue jail uniform, smiled at his court-appointed attorney and walked back to a holding cell.

“He’ll get out tonight,” defense lawyer Joel Steinfeld said after the hearing, telling reporters that his client was eager to turn his life around.

Gonzales resigned from the school board last month after police arrested him on suspicion of selling drugs on a south Oxnard street corner.

Law enforcement officials said that Gonzales appeared to be involved in a drug deal at Channel Islands Boulevard and Ventura Road and that when officers searched his car, they found about 4 1/2 grams of methamphetamine. Drug tests later revealed that the substance was cocaine.

Gonzales pleaded guilty June 28 to transporting the drug after Clark indicated that he would not send him to prison.

The May 31 arrest was the latest in a series of troubles for Gonzales.

In August, he was fired as director of the county-run La Colonia CalWORKS center for what his superiors said was poor job performance. The next month, he was convicted of misdemeanor battery after a Ventura County jury concluded that he shoved his wife into a broken window during an argument.

Gonzales was placed on probation for three years and ordered to attend domestic violence counseling.

After losing his job, Gonzales found himself in financial trouble, his attorney said, and took a generator from a store. Steinfeld said Gonzales was living out of his van when he was arrested in May.

When he pleaded guilty to the cocaine charge, Gonzales also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor petty theft in connection with the shoplifting incident and admitted to a probation violation.

During Thursday’s hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Karr asked Clark to send Gonzales to jail for 210 days. Steinfeld argued that 150 days was sufficient, and Clark settled on 180. Gonzales has already spent 86 days in jail pending sentencing, and he will serve the remaining time on work release or in jail if he doesn’t find a job in two weeks.