Aug. 16--A jury Wednesday found an entertainment industry producer guilty of impersonating a public official during a dispute with the owner of an Ojai tennis academy, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Alexander D'Andrea was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 36 months of probation. He also was fined $2,500 and is to stay away from Weil Tennis Academy owner Mark Weil.
Prosecutor Danny Lo said that under the terms of probation, D'Andrea is not to possess police paraphernalia.
"He pretended to be someone that the public trusted, and he perpetrated a fraud on society," Lo said.
D'Andrea's attorney, Darryl Genis, said the defense has filed an appeal and plans to ask a judge to stay the sentence until the appeal is resolved.
D'Andrea was accused of flashing a badge and intimidating the owners and an employee of the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai in 2010.
During the trial Tuesday, Lo told jurors D'Andrea, movie actor Stephen Baldwin's business partner, is a bully who told the academy's owner and an employee that he was a Los Angeles County sheriff's reserve deputy.
Lo told jurors D'Andrea backed up the threat by flashing a badge.
" 'Go ahead, call the cops. I am one of them,' " Lo said D'Andrea told academy employee Susan Wadsworth.
The incident occurred after D'Andrea's 15-year-old daughter was expelled from the tennis academy and D'Andrea, his wife and friend Anthony Kennedy went to pick her up.
D'Andrea took the stand and denied the allegations. He said the problem began when he asked Weil about allegations of sexual abuse made by students and about an academy van without seat belts that was involved in an accident during a team trip to China. D'Andrea said his daughter was in the van when it crashed.
After an exchange of angry emails when Weil and D'Andrea returned to Ojai, D'Andrea said he arrived and found his daughter's belongings outside the academy. He tried to get answers about why his daughter was being dismissed and wanted Weil to give him a $50,000 refund check.
D'Andrea testified that he got a $28,000 refund.
The misdemeanor trial, which lasted four days and had about 12 witnesses, was the second time D'Andrea was tried on the allegations. A jury in March deadlocked 10-2 in favor of a guilty verdict, but the judge refused to dismiss the case.
The defense on Monday wanted to put actor William Baldwin, a brother of Stephen Baldwin, on the stand as a character witness for D'Andrea. Ventura County Superior Court Judge James Cloninger denied the request, saying William Baldwin wasn't on the defense's witness list.
The trial was filled with emotion, including Cloninger's threat to hold D'Andrea in contempt after allegations he called Lo a derogatory name as jurors walked into court after a recess. The recording was replayed outside the jury's presence, and D'Andrea is heard muttering the word.
There was limited testimony about the sexual assault case involving a former coach that occurred in 2004.
Genis told jurors that D'Andrea's problems began after he went to a news producer, the FBI, Congress members and others to complain about the academy.
Genis said Ventura County sheriff's Deputy Chris Loes, who said he was Weil's friend for 12 years, wrote a report about the incident six weeks later. Genis told jurors Loes had testified that a sheriff's captain told him to write a report after the captain got a call from someone at the Ojai City Council.
Genis played for jurors a recording of a 911 call Wadsworth made. Genis said there is no mention of anyone flashing badges or saying he was a reserve deputy.
In the 911 recording, Wadsworth says D'Andrea is yelling, making threats and being rude.
Genis said Weil has many reasons to be untruthful, saying Weil filed a lawsuit seeking $800,000 from D'Andrea, who has countersued.
In the 48-page lawsuit he filed, Weil accuses D'Andrea of harassing him.
Copyright 2012 - Ventura County Star, Calif.
