Westminster City Councilmember Amy Phan West was granted a misdemeanor diversion program Monday, Aug. 11, after being accused of trying to use her political influence to prevent her husband’s car from being towed by the city.
Phan West was charged in January with a misdemeanor count of offering a bribe to a public officer. As part of the six-month diversion program, Phan West will perform 20 hours of community service and take a two-hour ethics class, according to court records.
If she fulfills the requirements without incident, she can seek to have the misdemeanor dismissed.
Phan West had pleaded not guilty at her February arraignment.
“We were happy with the decision, I thought it was a fair and appropriate one,” Phan West’s attorney Randy Collins said Monday afternoon. “She always believed she had a defensive case. For her, it was a good disposition because it leads to a dismissal — and ultimately that’s the goal.”
Collins said his client is expected to complete all the terms and conditions by the next court date, which is anticipated to be Oct. 27.
“We look forward to getting the case dismissed thereafter,” he said.
The councilwoman was operating a car rental business through the Turo car-sharing app around Dorothy Street and Melanie Lane in the city, which drew about 20 calls to police for service regarding “dirty, unregistered or abandoned vehicles” in the area in 2023, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
When two parking control officers ordered a tow of a Jeep registered to the councilwoman’s husband on April 21, 2023, she asked them not to tow the vehicle and offered to move it herself, prosecutors said. They alleged she also told the officers she “loves” the Police Department, was “close friends” with the police chief and was advocating for pay raises for the department as its union was negotiating a new contract.
Phan West also showed the parking officers a police department keychain, prosecutors alleged. The parking officers canceled the tow, prosecutors said.
Westminster resident Terry Rains led a group of 74 others in the city objecting to the diversion program in a letter filed in July.
Rains argued that allowing Phan West to participate in a diversion program “sets a dangerous precedent — that political power trumps the rule of law.”
The letter said diversion programs are aimed at drug possession or petty theft offenses, “not for crimes that threaten the core functioning of government or undermine the rule of law.”
The group requested a plea deal that would document the misdemeanor conviction while allowing her to avoid jail.
“A diversion program, followed by total dismissal of this case, would be a grave miscarriage of justice and an insult to the residents of Westminster,” Rains wrote. “Such an outcome would suggest that public office grants immunity from the consequences of illegal actions, thereby eroding the fundamental principle of the rule of law.”
After receiving the community correspondence, the judge in the original diversion hearing scheduled in July decided to continue the matter to August so it could be transferred to a trial court judge who could conduct a full hearing.
Staff Writer Mona Darwish contributed to this report.