Claude Parrish and the Repo Man

Oh, Claude Parrish, we thank the gods for thee. The campaign for state treasurer wouldn't be the same without you.

Back in the go-go '80s, when he was living large as the owner of the Dipsy Doodle Soft Serve Ice Cream Co., Claude W. Parrish decided to reward himself with a Mercedes-Benz SL380 Roadster, leased for $784.50 per month. And why not? A man's gotta live.

About 15 months after signing the lease, Parrish allegedly stopped making payments on this fine automobile. That's when the trouble began.

My colleague Evan Halper has come across some pretty juicy court records from 1983 about Parrish, the state Board of Equalization member from Southern California. Republican Parrish now is running against Democrat Bill Lockyer for the privilege of managing the billions of dollars that California keeps in the bank and Wall Street.

When the Mercedes bill went unpaid, the Brittingham Leasing Corp. hired a repo service and a detective agency (the Cheap Detective Agency, according to the court records) to retrieve the car from Parrish. It took a lot more work than they thought, records show. They said:

• "Mr. Parrish has eluded repossession by driving the vehicle at high speeds and in a negligent manner...both through residential and commercial areas and on surface streets and freeways;"
• "Mr. Parrish removed the original license plate from his vehicle;"
• "Mr. Parrish is receiving help from friends and neighbors by the use of walkie-talkies and telephones in his attempts to avoid repossession;
• "Mr. Parrish hides the car and takes the bus to work, therefore making repossession attempts futile, and has secreted the vehicle in remote locations.

Louis G. Brittingham wrote in an affidavit that he started receiving calls, first from an anonymous man and then from someone calling himself "Eric Jones."

"The caller stated that if I did not stop my attempts to get the car back, I would get hurt and similar threats were also made against my wife. At the time, the vehicle in Claude Parrish's possession was the only one I was attempting to repossess and I therefore believe that the caller was in fact Claude Parrish."

D'oh!

It's unclear what happened to the car in the end. We called Parrish for comment and sure hope he — or Eric Jones — calls back to explain. Stay tuned for more Claude Parrish adventures.

(Photo: AP)