Former Councilwoman Pleads Guilty

In a case that exposed the hidden ties between middle-class drug users and gang violence, a former Burbank city councilwoman pleaded guilty Thursday to felony cocaine possession after a federal investigation connected her to guns, drugs and a violent street gang.

Stacey Jo Murphy, 47, agreed to serve five years’ probation and enter a drug diversion program as part of a plea agreement in the case, which also involved her longtime boyfriend, Scott Schaffer. Schaffer had already pleaded guilty to federal gun charges.

As part of the agreement, Murphy pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of child endangerment; investigators had found guns and ammunition in a garage used as a playroom by her 12-year-old son.

Murphy was a former PTA member and a well-known civic booster with a squeaky-clean image.

A controller at a taxi service with some college education, Murphy had been elected to three terms on the Burbank City Council. Five years ago, she was named “woman of the year” by her local congressman, and by all appearances, she lived at a far remove from the world of Latino gangs, drive-bys and street drug sales in the crowded ethnic enclaves of nearby Los Angeles.

But all that changed when a police task force seeking to break up a North Hollywood street gang called the Vineland Boyz found links between the gang’s members and Murphy and Schaffer.

On July 13, police served a warrant on Murphy’s home on what one officer called a quiet, “Brady Bunch-type” street in Burbank, and found cocaine in her bedroom, and three semiautomatic handguns and 700 rounds of ammunition in the garage. A search of Schaffer’s apartment produced more guns and narcotics.

Schaffer and Murphy were not part of the Vineland Boyz, Burbank Police Sgt. Jay Jette said.

Instead, investigators believed that they were members of that hidden underpinning of urban gang violence: suburban drug users who are not involved directly in bloodshed, but whose habits support it. Investigators believe that Schaffer had passed his own legally registered gun to the gang in exchange for drugs.

Members of the Vineland Boyz were charged with the 2003 killing of Burbank Officer Matthew Pavelka and the shooting of Officer Greg Campbell, who was left paralyzed.

Murphy had attended a police memorial fundraiser in July of this year, and though neither Murphy nor Schaffer were connected to Pavelka’s death, their arrests a week later offered Burbank police the spectacle of one of their city leaders being linked to the same forces allegedly involved in killing and maiming their own.

Under Thursday’s plea agreement entered in the Pasadena courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Janice Croft, Murphy will serve no jail time. But she must return to court to prove that she has enrolled in drug and parenting classes, and provide progress reports. Schaffer is also free on a $1-million bond and secured court approval to take a holiday vacation to Connecticut, federal officials said. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June, Jette said.

A news release issued by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office called Murphy’s plea agreement “an appropriate resolution” of the case.

Murphy had been a community leader, but her drug use clouded her judgment, prosecutors said in the statement.