Candidate Admits Arrest

City Council candidate Deron Williams, a top aide to Councilman Nate Holden, pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession in Ontario in 1988 and spent 90 days in a rehabilitation center, he acknowledged Thursday.

Williams, who was 20 at the time, spent three years on probation, according to court and probation documents. Shortly after the conviction, he began working for Holden when the councilman encountered him in a drugstore parking lot and offered him a job.

In an interview Thursday, Williams called the episode an idiotic event that occurred during a troubled period in his youth.

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Williams, who is running for the 10th Council District seat. “When you’re young, you make foolish mistakes. But I haven’t made a mistake since then.”

Williams said he was caught holding a package that belonged to someone else. He acknowledged experimenting with drugs at the time, but would not specify what he used or for how long.

“It was rough, tough times,” he added. “I was a young man growing up in a tough environment. I didn’t have any hope.”

Williams, 35, expressed surprise that the court documents were available, saying he believed the conviction had been expunged from his record, which is otherwise clean. But he said he has been frank about his past and told Holden about the arrest before he was hired.

“Everywhere I go, I always say that I had problems as a young kid,” he said. “It wasn’t where I was keeping it a secret.”

Martin Ludlow, his opponent for the Mid-City council seat, said he was shocked to learn Williams pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. He complained that Williams has made public safety a centerpiece of his campaign without revealing his criminal past.

“I’m just a little disappointed he didn’t come and talk about it in the first round” of the campaign, Ludlow said. “I feel like people really were misled.”

Williams and Ludlow, a former state Assembly aide, were the top two vote-getters among the six candidates in the March 4 election. They will face each other in the May 20 runoff.

Rod Wright, who finished third in the primary and is working with the Williams campaign, said he doesn’t believe disclosure of the arrest would have changed the outcome of the election.

“There are so many people in South-Central Los Angeles that have been arrested and involved in things that I look at what people do today,” Wright said. “The fact that he was able to rise above that is a testament to how far he has come.”

Wright said he has known about the arrest for three or four years, but “I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there.”

Williams said that although he did not bring up the incident specifically, he believes he has been upfront during the campaign about having a troubled youth. He has promised to enhance community policing and provide more after-school programs for youths if he is elected.

He said Thursday that his background makes him committed to try to keep youths out of the circumstances in which he found himself.

“I know what it takes to turn these young men’s and women’s lives around,” he said.

Williams’ supporters defended him, saying that the arrest reflects a difficult childhood that the candidate eventually overcame.

Holden said that when he hired Williams in late 1988 he viewed the cocaine possession as an isolated incident. The councilman became emotional as he spoke about his chief field deputy, and broke off at one point, crying.

“People get a bad start sometimes,” Holden said in a shaky voice. “It’s not the start you get, it’s how you end up running your life.”

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who said she has known about Williams’ record for several years, said she stands by her endorsement of him.

“Every day we are dealing with people who have reclaimed their lives and I have nothing but admiration for them,” she said. “This is a message to the young people of the 10th District: Even if you have made mistakes in the past, with support from adults who care you can recover and move forward.”

The youngest of four children, Williams said he grew up in an unstable home in South Los Angeles. His father was not around. His mother, who had a substance abuse problem, left the children with neighbors and friends for days on end, returning only to give them potato chips or candy, he said.

The family never stayed anywhere longer than six months, he said. He and his siblings used cans and jars as drinking glasses, and washed their clothes in the bathtub, Williams said.

He played sports and graduated from John C. Fremont High School, but was going through a breakdown at the time of his arrest.

“I made the wrong choices at that particular time at my life,” he said, adding that “Anyone at any given time could have gotten caught up in a gang or drugs because it was so prevalent.”

On March 22, 1988, Williams said, some acquaintances asked him to take a package somewhere. Williams said he was not sure what the package contained, and said he does not remember where he went. The group was gathered outside on an Ontario street when the local police arrested them, he said.

“It happened so fast, I can’t recall” the details, Williams said.

He was originally charged with transporting an illicit substance for sale, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to possession for sale on June 14 of that year. Court records do not indicated how much cocaine Williams had, and he said he does not recall the amount.

Weeks later, Holden saw Williams and two friends hanging out one night in the parking lot of a Thrifty drugstore on La Brea Avenue. The councilman struck up a conversation with the young men, and later Williams called him and asked to come by his office.

During that meeting, he told Holden that the night before he met him, he had prayed to God to help him get out of his current environment, the councilman said.

“That brought tears to my eyes,” Holden recalled.

The councilman offered him a job, and for the next two years Williams worked for the district’s cleanup team, painting over graffiti and cleaning up litter. He eventually was promoted to Holden’s chief field deputy, a position he has held for eight years.

During that period, Williams has worked on economic development and safety issues. He helped bring the first urban Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store to the Crenshaw district and organized an auto repair job training program at Dorsey High School. After the 1992 riots, he helped establish an alley closure program.

In July 1997, Williams successfully petitioned the court to dismiss the charge because he had served his probation and not been charged with any other crimes, according to attorney Earl Williams, who said he represented Williams in the matter. (The two are not related.)

A well-known figure in the community, Williams has served as chairman of the Baldwin Hills School PTA and as first vice president of the Mid-City Chamber of Commerce, among other positions.

“Right now I have a family and a lovely home and wife and three children and the Lord has blessed me to run for office and has turned me around to do the right thing,” Williams said, adding: “I don’t want to let anyone down.”

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Times staff writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this report.