Council Hopeful Served Jail Time

San Bernardino County officials said Wednesday that Los Angeles City Council candidate Deron Williams served 117 days in County Jail after his 1988 cocaine conviction.

Williams has characterized his sentence as 90 days in a rehabilitation center, but Wednesday he acknowledged that it was “a form of jail.”

“I went to the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center,” said Williams, who is the top aide to Councilman Nate Holden. “I did my time.... It was a horrible experience.”

Glen Helen is one of three jail facilities in San Bernardino County. In Devore, it contains both minimum and maximum security sections, but most inmates sleep in dormitories and can take classes on everything from anger management to high school equivalency.

On Wednesday, Williams and Holden explained the candidate’s apparently conflicting statements as semantic confusion.

“Why would I say I didn’t do any jail time when I know I did jail time?” Williams said. “It was a jail. It was an institution.... I don’t know what it is.

“I don’t want to go into this period,” he added. “It’s traumatic. Every time I talk about it, it’s horrifying.”

Williams, who has said he was raised in South Los Angeles by a mother with a substance abuse problem, was arrested at Ontario International Airport on March 22, 1988, along with two companions. Police found about 3 ounces of cocaine in plastic bags in Williams’ underwear.

He pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession and was sentenced in July of that year to 180 days in jail. A spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday that Williams spent 117 days at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center.

Williams said he could not remember details -- including the dates -- of his incarceration.

On Wednesday, Holden and Williams had a conference call with a reporter to describe the exact nature of the facility.

“Were you in a dormitory type setting?” Holden asked.

Williams said that he was.

“How many roommates?” Holden asked.

Williams said he couldn’t remember.

“Do you have a guess? Ten? Twenty?” Holden asked.

Williams estimated that it was about 70.

After his release on Nov. 16 of that year, Williams went to work for Holden on a cleanup crew, eventually rising to the position of chief field deputy.

Williams said he has never sought to hide his troubled youth. Council members Bernard C. Parks and Jan Perry, Williams supporters, have said they knew about his past.

“He was punished. He did his time,” Perry said Wednesday. “I’ve known in great detail about Deron’s past. That’s why I can support him.”

Bernard Parks Jr., who works as his father’s spokesman, said the councilman has said all he needs to say on the subject of Williams’ criminal record. “The story doesn’t deserve any more time,” Parks Jr. said.

Williams has been hesitant to discuss details of the matter with the press and has been criticized by his opponent Martin Ludlow, who says Williams has tried to hide facts from the public.

When first asked by The Times about the conviction, for example, Williams said he was not certain that he was carrying cocaine, and that he was holding a package for some friends. He described himself as “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The next day, Williams admitted that he knew he was carrying cocaine but said, “I really don’t recall all the things in detail that happened.”

On Wednesday, he reiterated that. “I try to not even think about what happened in my life 15 years ago. What I’ve done in the last 14 years is what I can really focus my life on.”

Holden, who said he met Williams in a drugstore parking lot a few weeks before his sentencing, said Williams also has been reticent about discussing the incident with him.

“He is totally traumatized by this whole line of questioning,” the councilman said. “He doesn’t want to think about the way he used to live. Even I have backed off on questioning him.”