Another Chief Drops Out of College District

Drop, add, drop, add.

While it’s the ritual of every undecided undergraduate searching for the right basket-weaving class, it also describes turnover at the helm of the Police Department in the Ventura County Community College District.

For the fourth time in two years, the district is searching for a leader for its 18-member force. The most recent chief, Michael Johnson, recently quit for personal reasons, said Deputy Chancellor Michael Gregoryk.

Since the district created the position in 1998, it has been occupied by Johnson, a former Los Angeles police officer; Jamie Skeeters, a retired Oxnard commander; and Alan Chertok, former chief of the Spokane, Wash., Police Department.

Although Skeeters and Chertok were hired to serve only as interim chiefs and both left to pursue other jobs, Gregoryk conceded that district officials need to rethink the chief’s salary to secure a long-term employee.

“It’s always a surprise when you have a good one resign,” Gregoryk said. “We need to look seriously at the rate of pay. That is a factor. It’s expensive to live in this county.”

The pay is about $65,000, which is more than $20,000 less than chiefs earn at city police stations. Gregoryk said he plans to bring back Skeeters, a paid consultant for the college, to run the Police Department until a new chief is selected.

The process is expected to take about two months.

*

A former Ventura police parking enforcement officer will report to County Jail this month after being convicted of stealing more than $100,000 from her elderly, ill mother.

Leigh Diane Williams, 28, pleaded no contest last month to three felonies in what authorities described as one the county’s worst financial elder abuse cases in several years. She is free on her own recognizance.

Williams, who has since repaid her mom $20,000, was ordered to serve 90 days in jail and spend five years on supervised probation, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Bruce Young. She was facing up to four years in prison.

“The money was used to support her lifestyle,” the prosecutor said. Williams took trips to Cancun, Mexico; Hawaii; and Las Vegas. She also charged dinners, jewelry and clothes to her mother’s credit card, he said.

Williams, who was well liked by cops, resigned after being arrested last year for robbing her mother of her nest egg, which included a life insurance payment from the death of her husband, the defendant’s father.

The mom, Carol Jean Williams, lives in a local convalescent home. She is blind, sclerotic and diabetic. Carol Williams testified at sentencing that she wasn’t angry but thinks her daughter needs help, Young said.

*

If the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department had a list of the top 10 most wanted bad guys, deputies say Ricardo Sylvester Meza would be very, very high up there.

For five years, the 31-year-old former Camarillo resident has been on the lam since escaping from a holding cell at the Ventura County Courthouse.

Meza, a convicted rapist, was on trial at the time for stabbing a co-worker 25 times during a night of drinking and doing cocaine. The victim survived and Meza was convicted in absentia of attempted murder.

In the years after the escape, authorities chased leads all over the county, including a bogus tip that led them to a house in Simi Valley. Deputies believe he likely returned to his hometown in Mexico, where his family lives, but that there is always a chance he could return to Ventura County to visit friends.

“We’ve hit a block wall on this one,” Senior Deputy Kim Garrett said. “We’ve exhausted everything we can, but we are still very interested in solving this.”

If convicted of escape, Meza, who is already a three striker, could face two life terms in prison.

*

Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at 653-7581 or at holly.wolcott@latimes.com.