Former Mayor of Murrieta Indicted

The former mayor of Murrieta was indicted Tuesday for allegedly pressuring city officials to issue permits to his daughter’s day care center while he was in office and hiding his financial interest in the facility.

Jack van Haaster, 49, also faces felony charges of perjury and filing false documents for failing to report that he had received close to half a million dollars in loans from city residents and business owners, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.

Van Haaster’s arrest adds to the political turmoil in the Riverside County town of 78,000.

In January, Councilman Warnie Enochs was charged with extortion, forgery and subornation of perjury for, among other allegations, threatening to break a tile contractor’s leg if he didn’t help him cheat his wife in a divorce settlement. Enochs remains on the council.

In May 2005, Van Haaster was booted from office in a recall campaign that targeted him and two others, with the child care case being central to the campaign against him.

He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Van Haaster received but never reported $196,000 in loans from his employee Mildred Fletcher, $254,000 from city resident Gerald Pollack and $40,000 from two Murrieta businessmen, according to court documents that prosecutors filed his week.

Van Haaster also allegedly did not report the money he lent and then was repaid by Murrieta businessman Jim Rosa, whom he hired to do electrical work.

Under state law, elected officials are required to report their financial interests in an annual disclosure statement they must sign under penalty of perjury.

The charges against Van Haaster stem from “disclosures and omissions” on his financial statements that he filed from 2002 to 2005, according to prosecutors.

Van Haaster also faces five misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charges related to his actions affecting the proposed expansion of California Oaks Childcare, the day care center owned by his daughter.

While Van Haaster was a councilman, his daughter, Rachael van Haaster, was buying 3 acres to expand her day care operation into a new 394-student center with a swim academy, West said.

Jack van Haaster met privately with four city planning commissioners and pressured them to approve permits allowing his daughter to build the new center, prosecutors alleged.

A month later, he voted on a road improvement package that included paving a road next to the 3-acre parcel his daughter was buying, prosecutors alleged.

Court documents allege that Van Haaster did not reveal his financial interest in the company. From 2001 to 2005, he put nearly $165,000 from his bank accounts into the day care center’s bank account and received about $100,000 from the center’s account in his personal accounts.

Van Haaster faces up to eight years in prison if convicted.

He was arrested Tuesday evening and booked at the Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta and was released after posting $25,000 bail. He will appear in court Sept. 12.

Van Haaster’s arrest came the same day the City Council formally admonished Enochs for voting on a shopping center development that employed his son as a subcontractor and that Enochs himself worked on.