Westminster City Councilwoman Amy Phan West is facing a misdemeanor charge of using her political influence to avoid having her husband’s car towed by the city, prosecutors said Thursday.
Phan West, 42, was charged Tuesday with a misdemeanor count of offering a bribe to a public officer. She was scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 24 in the West Justice Center in Westminster.
The councilwoman was operating a car rental business through the Turo application around Dorothy Street and Melanie Lane in the city, which drew about 20 calls for service regarding “dirty, unregistered or abandoned vehicles” in the area in 2023, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
When two parking control officers ordered a tow of a Jeep registered to the councilwoman’s husband on April 21, 2023, she asked them not to tow the vehicle and said she would move it herself. Prosecutors said she also told them she “loves” the police department and was “close friends” with the police chief and was advocating for pay raises for the department as its union was negotiating a new contract.
Phan West also showed the parking officers a police department keychain, prosecutors alleged. The parking officers canceled the tow, prosecutors said.
An effort to reach Phan West for comment was not immediately successful.