Charges Against Former Fillmore Mayor Dropped

Saying the evidence was too weak, the Ventura County district attorney’s office dropped criminal tax-evasion charges Tuesday against former Fillmore mayor Gary Creagle.

Creagle, who owned the Up in Arms gun shop in Fillmore, had been charged with nine felony and misdemeanor counts of failure to withhold payroll taxes and failure to file tax returns in connection with some repair work done at his business.

The case was dismissed in a Ventura courtroom Tuesday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Johnson said he dropped the charges and asked the court to dismiss the case because it could not be proved to a jury. Johnson said he also had concerns about the investigation by the state Employment Development Department.

“The reports misrepresented the facts of this case,” Johnson said.

Specifically, Johnson said, the department overstated the number of employees, the amount of unreported wages and the amount of tax liability owed. And it did not give Creagle sufficient opportunity to pay what he owed, the prosecutor said.

Creagle, 55, had been accused of not paying about $5,000 in state income taxes for workers he hired in 1996 to make repairs to his gun shop, which was damaged two years earlier in the Northridge earthquake. In January, he turned himself in and was released on his own recognizance.

Creagle served on the Fillmore City Council from 1984 to 1988, and was mayor for one year. He also spent 13 years with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.