Judge Voids Compton Vote, Reinstalls Defeated Mayor

In a decision that roiled Compton’s topsy-turvy politics and surprised legal experts, a judge ousted the city’s sitting mayor Friday and replaced him with the defeated incumbent, Omar Bradley.

Superior Court Judge Judith C. Chirlin reversed the results of June’s city election in a 33-page ruling that quoted liberally from Charles Dickens. She removed Eric Perrodin, mayor for the last seven months, and ousted newly elected Councilwoman Leslie Irving.

Melanie Andrews, an educator who lost the election to Irving, was ordered installed on the City Council in Irving’s place. Chirlin, citing fraud by Irving and three members of her family, permanently barred Irving from holding office in California.

The ruling expressed the judge’s disappointment at the conduct of all sides in the case and urged more responsible behavior.

“To those of you involved in this case, whether on the prevailing or the other side, whether this decision ushers in the ‘best of times’ or ‘the worst of times,’ ‘the spring of hope’ or ‘the winter of despair,’ is up to you,” she wrote, quoting from “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Legal scholars said the fraud ruling in Irving’s case is likely to withstand an appeal, but Chirlin’s decision on the mayoralty may not.

The judge ruled that because Perrodin’s name illegally appeared first on all ballots, he got an improper statistical advantage worth at least 306 votes, enough to determine the outcome. The ruling was based on research by an Ohio State political scientist who testified about the impact of the city clerk’s failure to randomly list the names of candidates on the ballot.

The ruling “is quite extraordinary,” said Columbia University election law specialist Samuel Issacharoff.

The decision ended a 10-week trial with another stunning chapter in the generations-long history of vicious politics in the city of 93,000. It returned full control over city government to Bradley, who as mayor from 1993 to 2001 married brash statements with a record of infrastructure improvements to become one of Southern California’s best-known politicians.

And it created confusion and a host of new legal conflicts. Perrodin said late Friday that he will appeal next week. In addition, Bradley remains a subject of a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office--which is the employer of Perrodin, an assistant district attorney.

The timing of the transfer of power also remains uncertain. Although the judge ordered that certificates of election be “immediately” issued to Bradley and Andrews, City Hall--which is open only four days a week--was closed as scheduled Friday.

After reports that a brother and an aide of Perrodin removed papers from city offices Friday afternoon, county Sheriff’s Capt. Cecil Rhambo, who commands the Compton station, posted a 24-hour security detail around the building for the rest of the weekend. He later filed a report to the district attorney’s office on the matter.

“I’m optimistic for a smooth transition,” Rhambo said.

Even Bradley and his lawyers seemed surprised by the judge’s ruling. Many of Bradley’s supporters had hoped merely for a new election.

After hearing the decision Friday morning, Bradley clutched a Bible, invoked the names of Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers, and thanked God, his family and attorney Bradley Hertz. He said the legal fight--which cost $150,000 --had so drained him financially that he couldn’t give his daughter lunch money Thursday.

“Being mayor is not the victory. It’s not about Omar,” Bradley said. “The victory is that the process has been followed, the process that some people bled and died for.”

“Thank you to Brad Hertz, a little Jewish boy from the Valley,” Bradley added. “In the past I’ve made statements I’ve found wholly untrue about people of that man’s faith, and I’ve learned to only judge each individual on their character. This man is my brother.”

In last June’s election, Bradley’s opponents accused him of having used his office to enrich relatives and friends and retaliate against opponents. He has had particularly bitter enemies among the city’s public employee unions.

Some saw his decision in 2000 to disband the Compton Police Department and turn patrol duties over to the county sheriff as a personal attack on Compton police officers, including Perrodin’s brother, who had challenged his ethics. Bradley said he made the move to improve public safety.

A subdued Perrodin, who learned of the decision while prosecuting an accused thief, first told reporters that he was unsure about an appeal. But later Friday, he said he had made up his mind to go forward. With Bradley back in charge, Perrodin will almost certainly have to pay for the appeal himself. The city had spent more than $500,000 defending the election results.

“I’m going to appeal, probably the first thing Monday morning,” he said. “Not so much for me but for the people. I’ve been weighing it all day, and it wouldn’t be right for me not to appeal.”

Perrodin stressed that the judge found no evidence he violated the law, though Chirlin did criticize him for making threatening and obscene gestures and comments to firefighters on election day.

The judge found that 144 illegal votes were cast, and she ruled that City Clerk Charles Davis conducted the elections in a “careless” and “slipshod” manner. She said she was particularly disturbed by discrepancies between the number of ballots recorded by precinct officials and subsequent ballot counts in court.

But those findings, Chirlin said, were not enough to overturn the result.

The judge’s decision to award the election to Bradley hinged on the arcana of mathematics and ballot order--and the research of political science professor Jon Krosnick.

Chirlin found that the city clerk violated the law when he failed to list the candidates in the June 5 election in random order. Instead, both Perrodin and Irving were listed first.

In testimony that was given heavy weight by the judge, Krosnick argued that the advantage gained from being first on the ballot is between 2.87% and 3.32%. That figure, he testified, was based on research he did in Franklin County, Ohio--and on ballot position data from 2000 presidential and U.S. Senate races in California and North Dakota.

Applying those percentages to the more than 10,000 votes cast in Compton, Chirlin calculated that Perrodin got at least 306 votes that should have been Bradley’s. Perrodin, a prosecutor who had never run for office before, led the two-term incumbent by 281 votes in June in what political observers viewed then as a monumental upset.

Reversing an election on that line of reasoning is unusual, legal scholars said. UCLA law professor Daniel Lowenstein, an elections expert, said he would welcome a challenge. “This seems like the kind of case you’d feel an appellate court might look at differently,” he said. “It’s novel enough that, if [Perrodin] has the resources, I’d expect him to appeal.”

Fred Woocher, a Santa Monica attorney and election law expert, said the ruling was “probably worthy” of appellate review. He tried to get into the courtroom Friday morning but found himself stuck behind 50 other would-be court watchers.

“When I saw she actually ordered Bradley back in place, that’s a pretty strong result,” said Woocher, who would have expected a new election. “I haven’t seen any of the evidence. But testimony that ballot order might have had an effect strikes me as somewhat short of the quantum of proof necessary to literally change the outcome and put one person in office as opposed to another. This is a new one on me.”

Irving also benefited from being placed first on the ballot, the judge found. But that benefit alone did not overturn her 531-vote victory.

Chirlin said the combination of that advantage and fraud by Irving and her family overturned the result. The judge said she was con-vinced that the Irvings knowingly registered noncitizens to vote, solicited votes from absentee voters and then lied about it in court.

“The testimony regarding the activities of Leslie Irving; her sister, Kellie Irving; her mother, Janice Irving; and her father, Welton Irving, is perhaps the most disturbing this court has heard in years,” Chirlin said.

“Leslie Irving,” the judge said, citing the California Elections Code regarding public officials who knowingly allow fraud, “is forever disqualified from holding office in this state.”

In other parts of the ruling, Chirlin turned aside a challenge to the reelection in June of Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux. Frank Wheaton, a Bradley ally, had alleged that Arceneaux was ineligible to hold office because of an incomplete voter registration document from 1978.

The judge also accused a key witness in the case, Basil Kimbrew, of perjury. Kimbrew reportedly told Bradley’s attorney that he had participated in fraud on behalf of Perrodin and his slate of candidates. But on the stand Kimbrew said he had seen nothing and been offered a bribe. Chirlin said she was asking the district attorney to probe Kimbrew’s conduct. Kimbrew stuck by his testimony Friday and said he had “no concern” about prosecution.

Perrodin and members of a coalition of unions and churches that backed his candidacy said they were worried about retribution. Father Stan Bosch, one of a group of ministers who had challenged the tactics of the Bradley administration, said Friday by phone from Chicago: “My concern is that we’ll return to a fear-based politics and an exclusive one.”

Bosch, who had reported threats by Bradley operatives to the FBI, added: “If Mr. Bradley comes back with a more open disposition to the public, we’d like to work collegially with him.”

For their part, Bradley supporters said Perrodin and his allies should have nothing to worry about. Ernie Bland, a Bradley backer who has lived in Compton 37 years, predicted that the once and future mayor would reunite the city in “joyous celebration.”

“This young man has a lot of ideas,” said Bland, 68, a retired postal employee. “He can pull people together. He was already bringing people together before he was ‘defeated,’ quote-unquote.”

By midafternoon Friday, more than 100 people had stopped by to celebrate at Bradley’s home. “I’m sure there’s an appeal process, but wrong is wrong. He’s still the people’s mayor,” said Keith Cummings, a friend of Bradley.

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Times staff writer Joe Mathews contributed to this report.