Mansoor acknowledges Minutemen ties in trial testimony

The trial involving a 26-year-old man arrested during a City Council meeting in 2006 as he criticized the city’s plan to train Costa Mesa police to enforce immigration laws began Thursday and included testimony by Mayor Allan Mansoor, who acknowledged that he is an honorary member of the Minutemen, a pro-immigration reform group.

“People give me honors. I simply say, ‘Thank you,’ ” Mansoor said. “They wanted to make me an honorary Minutemen, I simply said, ‘Thank you.’ I don’t participate in any of their activities.”

Mansoor testified that he directed police to escort Benito Acosta from the meeting because he believed that his continued protests would incite “property damage and assault” in City Hall. He characterized Acosta as “disruptive” to the meeting.

City prosecutor Dan Peelman and Acosta’s defense attorney Kwaku Duren of the American Civil Liberties Union presented their arguments to jurors in opening statements.

Peelman argued that Acosta “became abusive, aggressive and disruptive, and he caused the City Council to be recessed.” Mansoor asked the officers to escort Acosta from the podium, but he was arrested after struggling with them, Peelman said.

But Duren argued that the city’s case amounts to “political prosecution” and that Acosta became upset because he was cut off before his allotted three minutes for comments had expired. The defense intends to convince jurors that Acosta’s 1st Amendment rights were violated, Duren said.