Elected Official Admits He Lied

The city treasurer of South Gate, elected to help clean up the corruption-ravaged city’s finances in the wake of the Albert Robles scandal, admitted that he lied about holding a college degree and working on a master’s.

Rudy Navarro, 26, acknowledged in an interview that he made up parts of his resume after The Times made inquiries into his background and education status last week.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. It was stupid,” he said. “Maybe it was the pressure to make myself look better than the previous person. My intention was really to come out and help.”

The diploma that hung in his office, the one other city officials had noticed? It was from his participation as a non-matriculated student taking open enrollment classes.

Rudy Navarro was portrayed as the fresh-faced, honest alternative to Robles, the city treasurer who was convicted last year in a massive municipal corruption scheme that placed the largely Latino working class city south of downtown Los Angeles on the edge of bankruptcy.

The scheme generated national attention because federal prosecutors said Robles’ actions cost the city $12 million, even though it has a total budget of about $28 million.

Navarro said he came back home, fresh out of San Diego State, to help save his city at a time of political turmoil. He told crowds about his pride in being the first in his family to graduate from college with majors in finance and political science.

But when The Times began asking questions about his resume posted on the South Gate website, Navarro acknowledged that he didn’t actually hold the degrees in finance and political science. In fact, he never finished college -- a fact he said he kept even from his parents until last week.

Now, Navarro said he is not sure about his long-term plans or where politics will fit in. As an elected official, Navarro cannot be fired by the City Council, and no city leaders have called for his resignation.

“I wanted to help people out. I didn’t do this for the money. If people feel strongly enough that I should resign, I’ll do whatever the public wants,” he said.

The revelations come at a difficult time for South Gate, as it is trying to balance its books by suing law firms and other contractors that it believes unfairly received money from the city during the Robles era.

Councilman Bill DeWitt, 64, said that despite the strides the city has made since 2003, “this kind of trips us a little. We worked very hard to gain credibility with our citizens, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job.”

He said he also worried what this could mean for Navarro.

“I was always hopeful that he would be a council candidate at some point in time,” DeWitt said. “I always felt he was a bright up-and-coming young man, and this is not good for his political career.”

City Councilman Henry Gonzalez, 70, who bears the political scars of the city’s past -- and a physical scar from being shot in the head -- said he was angry when he first spoke to Navarro.

“I told him, ‘You came charging down that highway on a big white horse, and you get rid of the devil and then you lied to the people,’ ” Gonzalez said. “I told him, ‘Rudy, ... one thing my dad always taught me: Don’t lie to people.’ ”

Gonzalez said that in a phone conversation, Navarro apologized and told him he had always intended to go back and get his degree, so he kept his secret, believing that eventually he would make his claims true.

“He’s young and he was impetuous,” Gonzalez said. “Man, I always thought he graduated. He has it on the website.”

Navarro said he wrote the resume that is posted on the city’s website.

“Being one of three children, Rudy is proud of the fact that he is the first member of my family to earn a college degree,” it reads.

The resume also says that he was “working on his MBA,” even though a bachelor’s degree is a prerequisite.

Navarro said that after he graduated from South Gate High School in 1997, he went to San Diego State.

But he said that by 2000, he was having problems paying for school and that he was too busy working at San Diego National Bank. From then on, Navarro said, he studied sporadically as an open enrollment student.

“I fell about a year short,” Navarro said. “I was done with almost everything, but I needed some of my core classes, upper-division classes.”

Navarro said his intention has always been to complete his bachelor’s degree, then pursue a master’s in business administration at USC.

In the meantime, he worked as a mortgage broker in San Diego.

Navarro returned to South Gate to challenge Robles in 2003. He backed the Robles recall and ran to succeed him as city treasurer. He won and immediately ordered an audit of the city’s finances.

“I guess I was being the guy on the white horse,” Navarro said.

Being a college graduate is not a prerequisite for the job of city treasurer. Now, Navarro said, he hopes his education claims “didn’t get me votes. I think my financial experience in banking and mortgage got me elected.”

But Gonzalez said that Navarro’s apparent educational bona fides helped make him an attractive candidate.

“People love a young educated guy from the community,” Gonzalez said.

He was reelected as city treasurer last year, a part-time position that pays $600 a month. He initially planned to run for City Council, but Gonzalez advised him to wait until he was more experienced.

Meanwhile, Navarro said, he has called people to say he is sorry, and he plans to make a public apology.

“I wanted to come back and help my city and let people know that with me they weren’t going to have to worry about their money,” Navarro said. “I shouldn’t have lied. I guess I let my passion for my community take over.”