Arraignment Scheduled Today for Health Center Director

VAL VERDE — To many people in and around this semirural community of 3,000, Edwin Seth Brown is Val Verde. On virtually any issue involving the town, Brown is there, attending public meetings, working on civic committees.

Neighboring Castaic--where Brown once served on the town council--declared him Man of the Year in 1994.

“[Brown] has been active in helping people in the community for over 20 years,” Greg Ferrier, president of the Castaic Town Council, said Thursday. “Without Edwin Brown, it’s a very different community.”

But Brown is scheduled to be arraigned today on two felony counts of preparing false documents, and friends and acquaintances are asking how such a thing could happen to a man widely regarded as a pillar of the community.

Some of Brown’s supporters say he will be exonerated, that the charges are the result of some mistake and too trivial to smear such an outstanding reputation.

Brown, 44, director of the Samuel Dixon Family Health Center, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Newhall after being arrested last month on two felony counts of falsifying court documents.

Brown did not return repeated phone calls for comment.

He allegedly presented documents to the court that credited two friends, John Milton Campbell and Jay Kapac, with completing court-imposed community service sentences at his clinic that they had not actually performed, according to court records.

Kapac was ordered to perform community service at Brown’s clinic as a condition of his probation on a marijuana conviction and Campbell had been sentenced to community service after being convicted of theft, court records show.

Brown is also accused of attempting to mislead the court about where the two men performed their work.

According to a Sheriff’s Department report, Kapac told deputies that he did most of his work at Brown’s home and performed little service at the health center.

“There was no motivation for Edwin to do this,” Ferrier said. “There was nothing in it for him or the clinic. Why does a person, who has been a leader in the community for 20 years, start committing felonies when there isn’t anything in it for him?” he asked, skeptically.

Jo Anne Darcy, a member of the Santa Clarita City Council, said she has known Brown for 15 years and worked with him in different organizations on a range of issues.

Brown would never do such a thing, she said, attributing his problems to a misunderstanding.

“Edwin really didn’t understand how to fill out the paperwork,” she said.

For two years, Brown has been running the Dixon health center, a low-cost clinic that provides health care to the “underserved and the unserved,” according to Stephen Schmidt, president of the clinic’s board of directors. Brown supervised an annual budget of $375,000, provided by grants from government and charitable agencies.

Schmidt said he has been happy with Brown’s performance, but declined to say what action the board might take if Brown is found guilty.

“I cannot believe Edwin would ever willfully break the law,” said Heather Gosda, a member of a health center advisory board. “He is such a giver. Somewhere, someone has made a mistake.”