Posted on 02/23/2002 8:27:37 AM PST by CounterCounterCulture
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| Nick Jesson says he was radical when he was younger, but says, "People do change." |
His ex-wife remembers the rare child support payments usually made in pennies, dimes and nickels "because he thought it was cute."
His son recalls being forced to split a meal at Sizzler with his younger sister because their father said money was tight. On the drive back, the father stopped and promised a roadside vendor that he would return and buy a $500 rug after he dropped the kids off.
Nick Jesson is running as the Republican Party's "true conservative choice" for governor, a candidate who supports traditional family values, but critics say his past has been far from traditional or pro-family.
Jesson, 51, has a criminal record stretching back to the 1970s and two children he left at a young age and allowed to be adopted by their stepfather.
The multimillionaire Orange County businessman, who owns property in Riverside County, eventually was ordered to pay $77,500 in back child support and once was arrested and convicted for exposing himself in public, according to court records.
His rap sheet includes two convictions of disturbing the peace, a probation violation and one count of drunken driving.
"People do change. Yes, I was very radical when I was younger," Jesson said. "I tell people that before I turned my life over to Christ people would not know me."
Jesson's political campaign bothers his son, who goes by the name Nick Walker and has little contact with his dad. Walker, now a 27-year-old father and Manteca resident, saw Jesson campaign signs all over Sacramento during a trip there recently.
"That really irritated me. It made me upset because he's never been there for me," Walker said. "This is a man that I do not want running California. I live here in California. I know the way he is and that is not what I want."
Walker and his 24-year-old sister April (Walker) Singleton of Seal Beach were adopted by their stepfather, John Walker of Moreno Valley, in 1990. Court records show the children had brief and infrequent contact with Jesson in the years following their mother's divorce from him 1978.
Singleton recently contacted her father in an attempt to rebuild a relationship with him. She has few memories of him.
"My sense of him is he seems like a good person," she said.
"I think sometimes when you're young you make mistakes. I made mistakes," said Singleton, who has a 7-year-old daughter. "For the record, he seems like a great dad. The kids are great; he's always playing with them and doing stuff with them."
Criminal charges
Jesson initially denied his criminal record in an hour-long interview Friday. He did acknowledge a "couple DUIs," then admitted to the convictions against him, but said they were old. He also blamed the arrests on misunderstandings.
He said he became a Christian in 1978 and gave up drinking in 1991, although his arrest on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and for exposing himself in public happened after his religious conversion.
"If you want to call that criminal then so be it," he said of the exposure charge, which he blamed on a woman peeking in his van where he lived and was changing clothes.
The assault with a deadly weapon charge he blamed on someone picking a fight with him in 1980 and fabricating a story about a weapon. A resisting arrest by a peace officer charge was the result of an officer harassing Jesson about where he parked his van in 1974, he said. Both charges were reduced to disturbing the peace counts.
Campaign support
Jesson and his three electronics companies have donated or loaned a combined total of $302,402 to his campaign. He has pledged to spend as much money as it takes to battle in California's expensive gubernatorial campaign.
He has pitched himself as a staunch anti-abortionist who favors strong gun rights and would deploy the National Guard to stop undocumented immigrants from entering the country.
Jesson's campaign has attracted far less attention than that of the three Republican front-runners in the March 5 primary -- former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, businessman Bill Simon and Secretary of State Bill Jones.
But Jesson has made a practice of loudly demanding inclusion in Republican Party events and debates.
His campaign materials were available at the recent California Republican Party convention in San Jose, but Jesson has not been allowed to join in the debates because he's considered a minor candidate.
He earned the support early on of The Conservative Voice, a well-respected, Riverside-based conservative Republican newspaper, and the endorsement of the United Republicans of California in the fall.
But on Friday, Shirlee Pigeon, editor-in-chief and publisher of The Conservative Voice, said she was rethinking the group's support. She said she was disappointed to learn of Jesson's past. The only skeletons Jesson admitted to initially when her publication considered endorsing him were some old drunken-driving charges, she said.
"Had he told us this stuff up front, we could not have gotten behind him like we did," she said. "Why would anybody be thinking they could hide this?"
Troubled marriage
Mariette Walker, a Kansas native, married Jesson in 1972 in Las Vegas after meeting him as a teen-ager while the two worked selling magazines in Oklahoma, she said.
"At that time he was a handsome man. He's definitely a slick talker. He can be the nicest, most wonderful person you ever want to meet. Then, there's a side of him, that, oh, boy," she said, her voice trailing off. "The screaming, the yelling. You know, he's the type of person that will terrify the daylights out of you. He has a look."
Jesson denied being hot-tempered.
They moved to San Diego and later lived in Orange County before separating when Walker was six months pregnant with their second child, Walker said. The couple briefly reconciled, but eventually divorced amid charges of infidelity by both.
His ex-wife says he was neglectful of their two children. His son says Jesson was a hurtful and disappointing father. An attorney who received angry written diatribes from Jesson during his child support battle says Jesson was dishonest and hostile.
Jesson says Mariette Walker, who lives in Moreno Valley, is dishonest and that the son has been brainwashed. Jesson says she hid the children from him for a decade, lied to them about their father and reneged on a deal to not seek back child support if Jesson would allow the stepfather to adopt the children.
"She had actually destroyed a relationship between my children and I," Jesson said. "The woman you're talking to is a liar. She's a bitter lady."
Jesson said in court records that his ex-wife hid the children from him, but Mariette Walker said the family has lived in the same area since settling in Riverside County in 1981 and even had contact with Jesson and his relatives over the years. She recalls getting late-night drunken phone calls from Jesson asking her to bail him out of jail.
Jesson, whose legal name is George H. Jesson Jr., denies making late-night calls to his ex-wife. He said he tried to track her through her old address and employer and family, but was unable to find her for 10 years. He admits to not paying support during that time.
Walker battled to get child support between 1978 and 1997, when she finally received $77,500. Much of it went to pay off years of legal bills, she said.
"He rarely paid child support, and, if he did, he'd pay it in pennies, nickels and dimes because he thought it was cute," she said.
Jesson acknowledges making occasional payments in change, saying he was so poor and desperate to see his children he would collect whatever money he had so his ex-wife would give him access.
Wealthy businessman
Jesson is a wealthy businessman who owns three companies: No Time Delay Electronics, Capacitor Specialists International and C D Electronics in Huntington Beach. He owns a Fountain Valley home, vacant residential property in Temecula with his current wife, and property in Lake Elsinore with one of his businesses.
Gary Imburg, a Riverside attorney who helped Mariette Walker collect the child-support money from Jesson, said he was shocked to learn Jesson was running as a pro-family candidate.
"I had personal dealings with him where he would make less-than-honest statements about his finances," Imburg said.
Family man
Jesson proudly displays photos of himself, his current wife, Trina, and his 9- and 6-year-old sons on his Web site and campaign literature. He makes no mention of his children from his marriage to Mariette Walker, although he says he has discussed the previous marriage in some speeches, telling people he wishes it hadn't happened.
Nick Walker said he began trying to build a relationship with Jesson about 10 years ago, but has consistently been disappointed. Jesson repeatedly failed to show up when promised and seemed to show more interest in his current children than those from his first marriage, Walker said.
His female employees constantly complained of sexual harassment. This lameass used to try to look down my wife's top when she worked there. He's a sleazebag; don't even think about voting for him. The guy reminds me of Bill Clinton, only with an (R) after his name.
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