The Associated Press
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) - A former sheriff had his convictions for concealing stolen property reduced Tuesday from felonies to misdemeanors despite allegations that he failed to meet the terms of his plea agreement by helping to locate hundreds of missing guns.
San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge J. Michael Welch approved the reduction as part of a plea bargain reached last spring when former Sheriff Floyd Tidwell pleaded guilty to the four felonies for taking an estimated 523 guns from evidence rooms.
In addition to reducing the convictions to misdemeanors, Welch put Tidwell on three years of probation and ordered him to pay $10,000 in restitution.
Prosecutors alleged that Tidwell stole the guns while he was San Bernardino County sheriff from 1983 to 1991, keeping some for himself and handing out others as gifts to friends, family and volunteer reserve deputies.
Tidwell, 74, has since returned about 130 of the guns but Deputy District Attorney Cheryl Kersey argued that the convictions should remain felonies because the former sheriff did not adequately cooperate with investigators in locating some 400 weapons that are still missing.
Tidwell’s attorney, David Call, did not return a phone call seeking comment but has previously said the sheriff fully cooperated with the investigation. The lawyer said many of the guns were returned to the Sheriff’s Department over the years but can’t be tracked because of sloppy records.
The sheriff deserved the reduction of his convictions, Call said, because of his service to the county and because a felony conviction would prohibit him from owning guns and leave him vulnerable to enemies he acquired as a law enforcement officer.
Authorities learned of the missing guns while investigating Tidwell’s sons for alleged illegal bail solicitation of jail inmates. Detectives found guns that belonged to the Sheriff’s Department at their homes and the sons said they received the weapons from their father. One of the sons has pleaded guilty in that case while the other pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.