Jackson pleads guilty to animal cruelty charge
El Centro City Councilman Jason Jackson pleaded guilty on Thursday to one felony count of animal cruelty, after having received assurances that the presiding county Superior Court judge would reduce his conviction to a misdemeanor at sentencing.
Jackson’s guilty plea came during a trial management conference with counsel in Judge William Lehman’s chambers a day before jury selection was scheduled to start.
Jackson said he chose the pending reduced conviction rather than risk the possibility of a jury returning with a felony conviction that would have forced him to relinquish his elected city councilman’s position, his private security business as well as his right to vote, he said.
“At the end of the day I made a business decision,” said Jackson, who maintains his innocence. “I have 250 employees, which means I have 250 families that depend on me to make the right decision so that they can keep their jobs.”
Jackson is due back Monday at the courthouse in El Centro for sentencing, during which time Lehman will decide which penalties to impose.
An animal cruelty conviction mandates Jackson forfeit the horse he was accused of neglecting, counseling and restricts him from owning, possessing or caring for an animal for five years, according to information provided by the Imperial County District Attorney’s Office.
Although the DA’s Office had initially offered a plea deal that would have reduced the felony charge to a misdemeanor, that offer had expired upon Jackson’s preliminary hearing in January, said Deputy DA Heather Trapnell, who prosecuted the case. In the absence of such a plea deal from the DA’s Office, Lehman has the discretion to also impose up to a year in jail, probation or other punishments such as community service and fines.
Jackson, on Thursday, claimed that his former attorney, Ryan Childers, failed to advise him of the DA Office’s initial settlement offer at the time the criminal court case got underway. Childers could not be reached for comment.
Jackson also acknowledged that his stubbornness and principled position would’ve likely prevented him from accepting such a plea deal a year and half ago even had Childers advised him of it.
As much as Jackson said he was hoping for a jury trial to clear his name, he also expressed some gratitude that he will no longer have to spend any additional time and resources on the matter.
Jackson had faced one felony count of animal cruelty in connection to the discovery in February 2016 of an emaciated horse that was in his care. The felony charge was formally brought against him in June 2016.
Jackson maintains that the charge against him was politically motivated, orchestrated by Assistant District Attorney Deborah Owen, who he claims frequently attended his court appearances and who allegedly has a “personal vendetta” against him.
Jackson said he wasn’t aware of any specify action or inaction that may have prompted Owen’s alleged dispute with him, and claimed that many others in the Valley and elsewhere had expressed similar opinions to him that the case was politically motivated.
He further claimed that Owen intended to use the high-profile case against him as a platform to drum up support for her pending bid for district attorney in 2018.
“She’s trying to use this as a grandstanding tool to kick off her election for DA next year,” he said.
Jackson also alleged he was aware of county District Attorney Gilbert Otero’s plan to seek reelection and subsequently resign so that Owen could be appointed DA and then seek reelection as an incumbent, a claim that Owen denied.
Owen also said that she understood Otero had every intention of seeking reelection and, should he be reelected, finishing his term.
As Assistant DA, Owen said it is common for her to pay attention to criminal cases as they make their way through the court system, and that Jackson’s was no different and certainly not one she had attended regularly, aside from the tail end of the preliminary hearing.
“I don’t believe there’s any merit to his allegations,” she said.
Jackson’s allegations about her having pushed for charges against him also displays ignorance of how cases proceed in the DA’s Office, of Trapnell’s decision to bring the charge, and Otero’s ultimate authority over whether charges are filed.
Thursday was the first time Owen said she had heard of Jackson’s allegations, and questioned why he or his attorneys chose not to bring such claims up with her office or with the presiding judge, or sought any of the remedies available to investigate alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
“If that is what he believes, he definitely should not have entered a plea,” Owen said.
Otero was also quick to dismiss Jackson’s allegations, which he called “cowardly,” and challenged anyone to factually state that he had ever explicitly indicated resigning from office should he be reelected in 2018.
He also explained that he purposely assigned Trapnell, one of his more seasoned prosecutors, to the case in anticipation of Jackson attempting to shift blame for his criminal actions unto someone else.
“I knew Jackson was going to try and make this a political case,” Otero said.