After months of wrangling with Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Frank Ochoa and Senior Deputy District Attorney Darryl Perlin, Gil Armijo, a former aide of county Fifth District Supervisor Joe Centeno, was sentenced Monday to 90 days in the Santa Barbara County Jail.
Before receiving his sentence, Armijo, who represented himself against a felony charge of perjury, attempted to get the sentencing postponed or canceled on legal grounds — even suggesting at one point that his case be heard by a federal judge.
“Mr. Armijo, you keep trying to go backwards — let’s move forward,” Ochoa told Armijo. “Your case consumes four volumes of material, and it’s time for this thing to end.”
For Armijo, who left the employ of Centeno’s office last July, trouble began in December 2007, when police found him inside a parked car on the side of a road in Carpinteria.
Deputies responding to the incident said Armijo agreed to take a breathalyzer test, which indicated a 0.16 blood-alcohol content — twice the legal limit. Armijo told police that a friend drove his car to where it had been parked and that he was in it to sleep. He also accused law enforcement officers of misconduct, alleging that the results of the breathalyzer test were grossly inaccurate because of interference from powerful radio signals coming from several passing cars at the time the test was administered.
Armijo maintained his not-guilty plea for the DUI charge until he later struck a deal with the District Attorney’s Office. He later changed his plea to no-contest.
Superior Court Judge Brian Hill sentenced Armijo to three days in the county jail, a fine and some community service hours. He already had served a few days in the county jail and performed 180 hours of community service, so he didn’t have to serve further jail time or pay a fine.
Perlin, the senior deputy district attorney, said that by changing his plea, Armijo essentially had admitted to giving false testimony about his drunken-driving charge at a DMV hearing in 2008.
In June 2009, just before Armijo left Centeno’s office, Perlin pursued a felony perjury charge against him — carrying a maximum sentence of four years in state prison.
Armijo alleged that the DA’s office and Sheriff Bill Brown were out to get him and harassed him in response to an accusation he had made against Brown that sheriff’s deputies were receiving overtime bonuses to catch drunken drivers.
Perlin, who did not attend Monday’s hearing, had recommended that Armijo receive a full year in the county jail, but the probation office’s review of the case called for a maximum 90-day sentence.
Ochoa ordered Armijo to report to authorities to begin his sentence on June 8.
— Noozhawk staff writer Ben Preston can be reached at bpreston@noozhawk.com.