Candidate Gives New Details on ’88 Arrest

During his 1988 arrest for cocaine possession, City Council candidate Deron Williams was caught at the Ontario International Airport with plastic bags filled with drugs stuffed in his underwear as he and two acquaintances attempted to catch a flight to New Orleans, according to newly obtained court records.

A police report of the incident disputes the description of the event Williams gave Thursday, when he said in an interview that he was holding a package for some friends when he was arrested. Williams said then that he was not certain of the contents of the package and could not remember where the arrest took place, but described himself as “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

On Friday, Williams admitted he knew he was carrying cocaine. The council candidate, a top aide to Councilman Nate Holden, said some details in the police report were not true, but he would not explain what was incorrect, saying he did not remember all the specifics.

“I really don’t recall all the things in detail that happened,” Williams said Friday.

“It’s been a long time,” he added. “I’ve blocked that out of my life and I’m moving forward and doing the right thing.”

Williams, who is 35, pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession in June 1988. He said he served 90 days in a rehabilitation center and did no jail time. Records indicate that his probation officer recommended he serve 180 days in county jail, but there is nothing in the record that indicates whether the judge approved that suggestion.

In 1998, a judge found that Williams had fulfilled the conditions of his three-year probation, and signed an order vacating his guilty plea and dismissing the complaint.

Martin Ludlow, Williams’ opponent for the 10th Council District seat, said Friday he was dismayed that his opponent appeared to be trying to “hide things from the community.”

“From a public safety standpoint, this community has been plagued by gangs who have been financed” by the drug trade, said Ludlow, a former state Assembly aide. “If anyone from this neighborhood is carrying around cocaine with an intent to sell it, that to me is part of the problem.”

According to the police report, three Los Angeles detectives working with a multi-agency narcotics task force at the Ontario airport spotted Williams and two other men exiting a taxi in front of the airport terminal about 6:40 a.m. on March 22, 1988.

One man, Chauncey Williams, who is no relation to Deron Williams, went to the Southwest Airlines ticket counter and purchased three one-way tickets to New Orleans using a credit card. As he made the purchase, he looked around the terminal nervously, according to the detectives.

A second man, Marvin Haynes, walked toward the boarding area, looking back at the detectives as they followed him. They approached him, and when Haynes consented to a search, they found three plastic bags containing cocaine in his pants.

The detectives detained Chauncey Williams, saying they had just found cocaine on his companion. “I don’t have any coke and I don’t know him,” Chauncey Williams reportedly said. The detectives then found three similar bags containing cocaine in his pants, according to the report.

Two detectives then found Deron Williams on the sidewalk in front of the terminal. He consented to be searched, saying, “Go ahead and look, I don’t have anything,” according to the report. However, detectives found three plastic bags with cocaine inside his underwear.

The three men had 254.8 grams of cocaine between them, about 9 ounces, according to the report.

On Friday, Williams said he went to the airport with his two companions that day because he thought they were meeting someone there. He said he did not think they were catching a flight, and did not know that Chauncey Williams had purchased tickets. Williams would not explain why the police report said he was carrying a blue nylon garment bag.

He refused to go into details of the arrest. When pressed, he said the cocaine he had was in a box, not bags. He would not say when he hid the drugs in his pants.

“It was a tragic time of my life, and I don’t want to think about it,” Williams said, but he insisted he had been candid about the matter.

“I don’t have reason to lie to anyone,” he said.

Even as the new details about the arrest emerged, Holden, Councilwoman Jan Perry and Councilman Bernard C. Parks, the former Los Angeles police chief, pledged their support.

Parks said he has known about Williams’ record for more than a decade. He saluted him as a role model, saying he turned his life around after a troubled period. Williams has said he was raised in South Los Angeles by a single mother with a substance abuse problem who often left him and his siblings alone for days on end.

“He’s a true success story,” Parks said. “He should be held up as an example to young kids in our community who believe that they have done something wrong and can’t recover.”

Parks said he believed Williams has been forthcoming about his conviction, despite the new information that emerged Friday.

Holden also defended his chief field deputy, although he said he had not known all the details about Williams’ arrest. The councilman met Williams in a drugstore parking lot shortly after the 1988 conviction and soon hired him onto his staff.

“I don’t have any concerns about the circumstances” of the arrest, Holden said. “When you know the story of his life ... the fact is he made something out of his life.”

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Times staff writers Jessica Garrison and Joy L. Woodson contributed to this report.