South Gate Council Candidate Held on Perjury Counts

A South Gate City Council candidate was arrested Friday on charges that he lied on official documents about living in the city to qualify for a November recall election, which he lost.

Richard F. Mayer, who will nonetheless appear on the March 6 general election ballot in South Gate, was arrested on seven felony counts of perjury by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and was being held on $50,000 bail.

According to prosecutors, Mayer falsely claimed to live in South Gate on nomination forms, a voter registration card and a driver’s license application. Prosecutors believe his real home is in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles.

If convicted, Mayer, 48, could face a maximum of six years and four months in prison.

The charges stem from a probe last year by South Gate police that concluded that Mayer, a health care consultant, may have given a false home address to qualify for the recall election in November.

The police turned their evidence over to district attorney officials, who arrested Mayer on Friday morning at the Boyle Heights address.

Before the November election, South Gate City Clerk Nina Banuelos tried to remove Mayer’s name from the ballot but was blocked by a Superior Court judge who ruled that it was too late because some absentee ballots had already been distributed.

Mayer lost that race, coming in third in a field of four.

In the following months, Mayer qualified as one of 10 candidates vying for two other council seats that will be filled next month.

Fredrick Woocher, an attorney for the city, said that, despite the arrest, Banuelos cannot legally remove Mayer’s name from the March 6 ballot because he has not been found guilty of perjury.

“No court has determined that he doesn’t live there,” Woocher said.

Mayer could not be reached for comment, but in previous interviews he has insisted that he lives in South Gate and suggested that he is the victim of a “witch hunt” orchestrated by his political enemies.

South Gate Councilman Henry Gonzalez said Mayer recently filed an $85,000 claim against the city, charging that the police investigation harmed his November candidacy and ruined his reputation. The claim is pending.

In nomination papers he filed for the November election, Mayer claimed that he lived in an apartment at an address on Southern Avenue in South Gate.

Responding to a complaint, South Gate police went to the Southern Avenue address and interviewed the occupant, who said Mayer did not live there, according a crime report.

The occupant, Willebaldo Morales Arroyo, told police that he had agreed to let Mayer use the address for “something to do with politics,” according to the crime report.

Mayer’s driver’s license lists his home address as Tremont Street in Boyle Heights, according to the crime report. His voter registration records list two addresses, a home on Mesagrove Avenue in Whittier and the Southern Avenue apartment in South Gate.

Mayer’s arrest is only the latest of a series of scandals and strange political events in the working-class community in southeast Los Angeles County.

On the ballot with Mayer are two candidates who share the same name, Hector De La Torre. One is an incumbent council member who claims his namesake filed for the seat to confuse the voters and ruin the councilman’s chances of getting reelected. The other De La Torre denies the charges.