Corona police lieutenant with alleged ties to Vagos Motorcycle Club fired

Off the Wire
BOA, Club News
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
CORONA - A Corona police lieutenant with alleged ties to the Vagos Motorcycle Club was fired last week, according to a city council member quoted by a newspaper today.

Lt. Brent Coleman was put on paid administrative leave 10 months ago and was fired after refusing a $25,000 payment for his resignation. The sum was the most that city administrators could offer the lieutenant without first getting city council approval, councilman Steve Nolan told the Riverside Press- Enterprise.

Tuesday was Coleman's last day. The police department declined to say why he was under investigation, but the president of Crown Town Vagos, a motorcycle club, told the newspaper he was questioned in June about his 15-year- long friendship with the lieutenant.

Carlos Padilla Jr., the club's president, said Coleman cut off ties with Padilla when he joined the club four years ago, it was reported.

"I grew up in Advertisement

[ Tenkobushi ] Corona. I was born and raised there," Padilla said. "I know half the police force."

Padilla's wife, Michelle Wilson, was also questioned about the lieutenant. She was a topless dancer involved in the drunken driving case of former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach, according to news reports at the time.

Thirty-three members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club were arrested on suspicion of parole violations and drug and weapons charges in a March 17 roundup, deputies said.

Coleman headed the special enforcement bureau, which includes traffic, family services and school resource officers. In June, he was questioned as part of a "personnel investigation," he said in July.

Officer Jessica Welde, a school resource officer working for Coleman, said investigators asked her how he spends his personal time, and with whom he associates, she said. Shortly after she was questioned, she was also put on administrative leave