Huntington Threatens to Withdraw Pleas

Huntington Beach officials on Thursday threatened to withdraw their guilty pleas for allowing massive amounts of sewage to leak from aging pipes unless a judge agrees to label the crimes misdemeanors instead of felonies.

The dispute developed a day after the city admitted in court that it knowingly violated state water laws by discharging pollutants from the sewage system. But city officials insisted Thursday that they had pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, whereas prosecutors maintained the charges were more serious felonies.

Though the distinction does not affect the punishment the judge handed down, city officials said Huntington Beach’s wrongdoing did not amount to felonies and they never would have knowingly pleaded to such charges.

“The word ‘felony’ sounds so much more serious,” said attorney Gary Pohlson, who is representing the City Council. “They don’t want to be characterized as a city engaging in felony conduct when they didn’t.”

The city and district attorney’s office negotiated for months to hammer out the guilty pleas, which mark a rare case of a city admitting criminal culpability for polluting the environment.

Behind the scenes, both sides took extraordinary means to avoid use of the word “felony.”

Prosecutors listed the pollution crimes as “public offenses” in court papers without specifying felony or misdemeanor.

Under state law, a public offense is merely a crime that can be a felony, misdemeanor or infraction.

When Huntington Beach’s mayor pleaded guilty Wednesday, the city was admitting to felony charges because they carried possible prison time, said Assistant Dist. Atty. Bob Gannon.

“We considered the conduct to be felony conduct,” Gannon said. “As charged and as pled, it was a felony.”

Gannon said his office decided to label the charges “public offenses” after the city objected to the word “felony.”

“It was not in the public’s interest to jeopardize a settlement because of distinctions between felonies and misdemeanors,” he said.

Commissioner Martin G. Engquist sentenced the city to five years probation and ordered it to spend $250,000 to study and clean up the pollution.

By doing so, the commissioner essentially converted the case to a misdemeanor, city officials said.

Now city officials want Engquist to clarify on the record that the case is a misdemeanor--or they’ll move to withdraw their plea and set up a potentially protracted and costly legal battle.

“Somebody misled us, making us think we were pleading guilty to a misdemeanor,” Councilwoman Debbie Cook said. “We made it very clear to our attorney that we would not accept a felony. . . . To have this turn out to be a felony blows us away.”

Cook also said that the council’s position is firm on the subject and if prosecutors insist on felony convictions “there [are] enough of us in the room willing to go to the mat on this.”

Gannon said he hopes the semantics debate does not destroy a settlement he said was good for all sides and ensured a timely cleanup process.

He said he plans to discuss the issue with Pohlson today.

“If he wants a declaration that it’s a misdemeanor by sentence, I’m certainly willing to talk to him about it,” Gannon said.

Legal experts said the dispute was highly unusual, as was the decision by prosecutors to classify the case as a “public offense.”

“I’ve been doing this 30 years, and I’ve never seen a case charged as a ‘public offense.’ The charge always specifies either a felony or misdemeanor,” said Ronald G. Brower, a criminal defense lawyer in Orange County.

“In my opinion, they pleaded guilty to a felony because they were advised the maximum penalty was three years in state prison. . . . The only thing that can get you 36 months for one count is a felony. Period.”