Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez Arrested

Editor’s note: This story has been updated since we first broke it Tuesday morning.

Hernandez Arrested Tuesday, According to Jail Records

RIVERSIDE —Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez, 42, was arrested and booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center on Tuesday, according to jail records. His bail was set at $112,500. He posted bail Tuesday afternoon and was scheduled to be released.

After turning himself in, he was arrested and booked into jail in by investigators from the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office on Oct. 28 at 10:35 a.m. for numerous crimes involving perjury and conflict of interest as a government official, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco confirmed for Uken Report. Updated Riverside County jail records show he was arrested on five counts of conflict of interest, one of which was a felony, and five felony counts of perjury.

He was indicted by a grand jury. The grand jury’s indictment is sealed. The District Attorney’s office will release contents in the coming days,

Hernandez is innocent of all charges until he is proven guilty in a court of law. He remains Mayor of Coachella.

“The city is aware of allegations made regarding Coachella Mayor Steven A. Hernandez and the city’s administration is fully cooperating with authorities,” Risseth Lora, public information officer for the city, said in a news release. “There is no additional information available to share at this time.”

The arrest follows a closed-door meeting of the Coachella Valley Association of Government on Monday. The purposes was to discuss possible litigation. Each member of the Executive Committee was given a confidential packet of documents pertaining to Hernandez and were advised not to discuss it. Tom Kirk, executive director of CVAG, said there was no reportable action taken during the executive session.

One member who read the contents would only say, “It’s bad. It’s very, very bad.”

The arrest also comes on the heels of the arrest last week of Cesar Lucrecio Rosales, 55-year-old business license technician for the city of Coachella. He was arrested Tuesday on felony charges of embezzlement and bribery, according to jail records. Investigators were looking into Hernandez’s activity when they stumbled across “inconsistencies” in the business license department.

At about 20 years old, Hernandez started interning at the Riverside County Board of Supervisors for Fifth District Supervisor Marion Ashley.

He now works as Chief of Staff to Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, who is facing reelection. He has been employed at the county for more than 22 years. He was elected to the Coachella City Council when he was 23.  He has been mayor for about 11 years.

Hernandez is married and has two children.