Compton’s Ex-Mayor Takes Fight to Court

For eight controversial years as Compton’s mayor, Omar Bradley quarterbacked the city of 93,000 with a personal and political style described as either dictatorial or visionary.

Whatever the opinions about Bradley’s leadership, he appeared to be headed for the political sidelines when he lost the June 5 mayoral election by 261 votes to Eric Perrodin after a bitter contest.

But with the political equivalent of a hail-Mary pass, Bradley, a former football star at Centennial High School, is aiming to snatch a last-second victory from an opponent he accuses of cheating.

In a trial scheduled to begin today in Los Angeles Superior Court, Bradley will try to overturn the election results and prove election fraud charges that would permanently disqualify Perrodin from holding office in California.

To succeed, however, Bradley’s civil lawsuit must catapult over a formidable obstacle, legal experts say: the presumed finality of an election after the ballots have been counted.

The defendants all deny Bradley’s accusations. Some Compton political observers portray him as just a sore loser who can’t cope with the decline of his power.

Bradley and two City Council nominees who ran on his slate, Melanie Andrews and Frank K. Wheaton, have accused Perrodin, City Clerk Charles Davis and the city of Compton of wholesale election fraud, including ballot forgery and other violations of the California Elections Code “sufficient to have changed the outcome of the election,” according to court documents.

Compton’s mayoral seat is considered a part-time position, and Perrodin also works as a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney.

“I’ve never dealt with a case that approached the kind of outright fraud and forgery that we intend to prove,” said Bradley’s attorney, Bradley W. Hertz, an election-law specialist who represented Mike Huffington in an unsuccessful challenge of his loss to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in the 1994 senatorial election.

Hertz said he plans to call 50 to 75 witnesses and present several hundred documents to show that “numerous illegalities” contributed to Perrodin’s rebound from the April 17 primary election. In that three-way race, Perrodin came in second, more than 2,000 votes behind Bradley.

Brian A. Pierik, the attorney representing Compton, Davis and Perrodin, disputed Bradley’s claims.

“There is no merit to any of these charges,” he said. “There was no fraud; there were no illegalities.”

Among other allegations, Bradley’s attorneys say that Davis, city clerk since 1973, was a party to the forging or altering of election returns, that he counted the votes of unregistered “ghost voters” and that he favored the Perrodin slate of candidates by listing their names first on the ballot.

Because of the pending trial, Perrodin would not comment on the case, Pierik said. Bradley also declined to be interviewed.

The district attorney’s public integrity division is the agency charged with investigating and prosecuting voter fraud, illegal voter registration and other illegal campaign practices.

“I don’t know anything about a civil suit, but we haven’t received any complaints about the election,” said Dave Demerjian, head of the division.

In a September corruption probe, the public integrity division served search warrants on Compton City Hall and 10 other locations, including the homes of Bradley and two of his supporters, Councilman Amen Rahh and Councilwoman Delores Zurita, Bradley’s aunt. No arrests were made. Demerjian would not comment on the searches, other than to say an investigation is “ongoing.”

After the warrants were served, Bradley supporters said Perrodin, in his position with the district attorney’s office, may have instigated the probe in retaliation for Bradley’s fraud accusations. Perrodin’s supporters denied that.

Close elections are nothing new in Compton.

“I really believe this is a sour-grapes situation,” said Maxcy Filer, a Compton attorney and former City Council member. “So what if the margin was only 200-something votes? When Bradley won [his first election], it was by 300-something votes.” Bradley was elected in 1993 over Patricia A. Moore by 349 votes.

Douglas Dollarhide, Compton’s first black council member and mayor, was elected by 75 votes, said Filer, who served as his campaign manager in the early 1960s.

Much of Bradley’s two terms in office was marred by recurring turmoil and a series of bitter, and often public, feuds. His supporters say Bradley improved the city and portray him as a victim of political enemies. Critics portray his tenure as a reign based on fear and patronage.

In 1999, then-Mayor Bradley removed Police Chief Hourie Taylor and Perrodin’s brother Percy, a Compton police captain, from their positions. The move soured Bradley’s relationship with many officers and helped spur Eric Perrodin, a Compton police officer from 1983 to 1995, to run for mayor.

In the summer of 2000, Bradley led the city’s move to disband the Compton Police Department and contract with the Sheriff’s Department for law enforcement, citing a desire to improve public safety and potential cost savings.

Bradley accused Eric Perrodin of threatening him during a City Council meeting in June 2000 and publicly challenged him to a fight after the meeting, an outburst for which he later apologized.

After the election this June 5, Bradley asked Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Yaffe to issue a temporary restraining order to stop official certification of the vote, alleging fraud. The judge denied his request, and there has been no official recount.

On June 19, the City Council, then dominated by Bradley’s supporters, refused to certify the election results. The council did not muster enough votes for certification until July 10, after Perrodin and Leslie A. Irving, a council member who ran on his slate, assumed office.

Bradley’s latest challenge to the election was filed Aug. 10 in Los Angeles Superior Court. Judge Judith C. Chirlin will hear the case--expected to last several weeks--as a bench trial without a jury.

Bradley’s attorneys have filed a motion to unseal the ballot boxes to look for counterfeit or other illegal votes. Chirlin has yet to rule on the motion, but last week she ordered the ballots transferred to Superior Court from Compton City Hall.

Experts say that minor irregularities and even recounts of close elections are fairly common. But it is relatively rare for candidates to allege the kind of rampant fraud that Bradley has.

Such allegations are difficult and expensive to prove, and do not often succeed in overturning elections, according to people familiar with the process.

Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said she has been involved in only a handful of such contests over her 20 years of supervising elections in Los Angeles, San Diego and Dallas, and that none was successful.

“Accusations of fraud or mismanagement or anything beyond the numbers not adding up correctly are quite rare,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it never happens, but it’s very unusual.” McCormack does not oversee elections in Compton, a charter city where the city clerk performs that duty.

Compton hired Martin and Chapman, an Anaheim-based election services company, to provide ballots and precinct supplies and to operate ballot-counting machines.

“We believe we provided professional and outstanding services,” said Glenn Sailer, a company spokesman. Bradley’s attorneys said they intend to call representatives of Martin and Chapman to testify in the case.

Whether Bradley’s challenge is a principled stand or a desperate ploy, those who know him say they do not expect him to give up easily.

“He’s a fighter,” said Jacqueline Watkins, president of the Compton Bulletin, a weekly newspaper that has covered the city for 32 years. “Plus, he loved being mayor.”