Of Trump Trains and criminal convictions in a lunatic election season.

The timing was ironic and the fall was spectacular.

In 2018, Neil Kitchens ran as the lone Republican in the race for Assembly District 30, a four-way race that was ultimately won by Robert Rivas. The seat was up for grabs after Anna Caballero termed out and went for a state senate seat. Kitchens campaigned on a platform that included so-called traditional Republican values: smaller government, fewer regulations, lower taxes and, of course, harsher punishment on crime.

At his 2018 election night party, as recounted by Weekly staff writer Pam Marino, it was easy to find Kitchens’ home in the foothills of Prunedale: The gate was festooned in red, white and blue balloons emblazoned with “MAGA” – Donald Trump’s slogan for Make America Great Again. There was a potluck spread on the patio, and a banner reading “Rancher. Businessman. Conservative.” About 50 supporters gathered, watching election results on Fox News.

No supporters were in evidence when I saw Kitchens on the morning of Nov. 3, Election Day 2020. He was by himself, in Monterey County Superior Court, save for defense attorney Frank Dice. He wore flip-flops over socks. At about 11am, they stood before Judge Carrie Panetta and Kitchens pleaded no contest to a single count of election fraud stemming from the 2018 race.

Kitchens pleaded guilty to violating state election code by lying on official documents about his residence, a charge called “false candidacy declaration.” He had faced a slew of other felonies, including illegal voter registration, perjury and offering a false or forged document in how he registered for the race. He also pleaded to a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence stemming from a March 3 arrest in which his blood alcohol level was pegged at more than 0.20.

The house where he held his party, and where he lived: It’s in Assembly District 29. The residence he used to register for the election, which he’s leased to a tenant for years, is in Assembly District 30. Campaign consultant Christian Schneider, who represented candidate Bill Lipe in that race (Lipe lost in the primary) noticed the discrepancy in addresses and took it to California Secretary of State investigators.

Outside of court, Kitchens was polite, but didn’t want to speak, telling me, “No, no, I don’t want to say anything, but thank you for asking.” He’ll be back before Panetta in January for sentencing, but the sentence he’ll get is mostly a yawn: three years formal probation for election fraud felony, informal probation on the DUI.

So much for being tough on crime.

I had just come back from the Kitchens’ hearing when my phone blew up, with text messages from more than one person, asking me if I had seen the video. I hadn’t, because I asked, “What video?” And I was sent a link to the Instagram feed of Captain + Stoker, the hip coffee joint and (pre-pandemic) community gathering place in Monterey. The video was shot by co-owner Kelsea Richmond; in it, she is riding as a passenger on a motorcycle driven by co-owner Tyler Ellis. It was Sunday morning and they had decided to ride on Highway 1, with a Black Lives Matter flag on the motorcycle, in the middle of a Trump Train.

A Humvee pulls up next to them, and a passenger in the rear seat on the passenger side blows kisses at Richmond’s camera as the driver appears to try to run them off the road. Ellis and Richmond’s only apparent act of aggression? Being in the middle of the Trump Train with a Black Lives Matter flag.

“Our whole intent was not to say a thing, not be aggressive,” Ellis says. “The Hummer came into our lane, and I don’t know if it was in the hopes of scaring us or pushing us off the road, but then they flipped us off.

“I’m a very confident person on a motorcycle, so I wasn’t scared,” he says. “It was more that I couldn’t believe it was happening. People are saying we shouldn’t have gone to look for trouble, but if they can present their flag, why can’t we? We support the police, and we like justice and equality and following the law.”

The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident, and with a clear shot of the passenger and a decent shot of the license plate, it shouldn’t take them all that long to find the driver. The video will be posted online with this column.

MARY DUAN writes Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan.