Ed Arnold pleads to child porn, burglary charges

June 9, 2011

Former Arroyo Grande City Council member Ed Arnold entered a no-contest plea Wednesday to felony charges of residential burglary and possession of child pornography.

Arnold faces of to six months in San Luis Obispo County Jail. Under the plea agreement, he will be required to register as a sex offender.

A no-contest plea results in a conviction without an admission of guilt.

Arnold had been charged with first-degree residential burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting corporal punishment on a spouse or cohabitant, criminal threats, possession of an assault weapon and two child pornography counts. Before the plea agreement, he faced up to 10 years in prison.

In 2009, Arroyo Grande police arrested Arnold after a woman who he and his wife had an affair with said he assaulted her. He allegedly broke into her home, threatened to kill her and attacked her with a metal club.

During a search of Arnold’s Pismo Beach home in January 2010, Arroyo Grande police discovered a video of an underage foreign exchange student and photos of what appear to be underage girls.

Police suspect Arnold used a hidden camera during the summer of 2005 to video the then 16-year-old while she showered. The woman, from Spain, confirmed she is the subject of the video.


Loading...
10 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Remember how we had to practically beat the AG City Council over the head to get them to dump him from the Board?


They supported him–I mean, verbally said “He’s a good guy” type stuff–until the very end.


Elected officials are an elite class of individuals like the rich, their “S” do not stink like the rest of ours.

And many were dumbfounded of the initial allegations because public officials typically have higher trust and credibility.


I think if justice did not prevail, I would not blame the father of the girl he almost killed from taking the law into his own hands.


I think this will affect his re-election chances. Yeah. Pretty certain.


No one can say you don’t have the pulse of the nation in your hand!

I might ad his future in the day care industry is also in doubt.


I don’t know anything about this guy other than this story and that he was a councilman if I recall correctly, but trust me this dude will be paying for this for the entire rest of his life. A sex felony and registration = life long occupational and social destruction. Would you hire or socialize with or date him?


“He allegedly broke into her home, threatened to kill her and attacked her with a metal club.”


I do believe he would have killed her!


He did get a slap on the wrist. I can understand that it can be devastating to have your wife leave you for another woman, not to mention the realization of all the deceit that probably came rushing to the forefront once the big picture fell into place but he still took the actions that he did and those were some mighty serious actions.

What’s really going to finish him is the registered sex offender status. OMG, I can’t think of having a worse charge when you are conducting yourself in everyday society. Strange how a person can conduct themselves as an upstanding respectable member of a community for decades without a blemish to their name or character and then, one day, everything blows up and the roosters come home. Video taping that 16 year old was despicable and to think that he had a teenage daughter around, how can a person do that without (if nothing else) considering how he would feel if someone did that to his daughter? He has the mind of a sociopath and he got off easy.


Hey, let’s not forget that BOTH the parents entered into this freaky relationship with the weaselly third party lover girl. They did this with CHILDREN in the home!


There was only 2 innocent parties that were hurt by this whole fiasco and that was the 2 kids. The adults are just a bunch of sick pigs.


I’m I reading this right. The guy gets one felony count each (one for burglary, one for poss. of child pornography) and he gets a slap on the wrist of six months and registering as a sex offender? You have got to be kidding!!!??


Yep! Just goes to show that you can bonk someone on the head with a steel rod after you break into their house and pretty much get away with it!