Phillip Chen Intentionally Deceived Voters About His Occupation
Posted by OC Insider on April 7, 2014
In 2011, when Phillip Chen ran for the Walnut Valley Unified school board he listed his occupation as “Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff.”
The problem is Chen was a full-time Los Angeles County employee at the time he made his false claims – not a full-time cop.
AD 55 Candidates Phillip Chen and Ling-Ling Chang
Yes, Mr. Chen is a reserve officer who makes $1/year for his services, but he has never been a LA Deputy Sheriff. No amount of training or volunteer work changes the fact that Chen intentionally deceived voters about his occupation and tried to conceal the fact that he was a county health care employee from them.
Apparently embarrassed by his true occupation, Chen is now campaigning for State Assembly as a “small business owner” – despite the fact that he remains a well-paid L.A. county health care employee.
During his school board campaign, Phillip Chen also claims he was a faculty member at Cal-State Fullerton for six years and that he started teaching there in 2000. But, Chen didn’t graduate until 2002 – after he claims he was on the faculty!
Unfortunately for Chen, Cal-State Fullerton verifies that Chen only taught there from August 18, 2005 – June 2, 2006 and again from August 17, 2007 until January 2, of 2008. 13 months of teaching does not equal the six years Chen claims to have taught at Cal-State Fullerton.
One would think professor Chen was teaching high-level academic classes during his disputed “tenure” at Cal-State Fullerton. But, an internet service called “Rate My Professors” gives Phil high marks for teaching Wushu (martial arts) at Cal-State Fullerton to “hot students.”
Voters might have looked at his experience in a different light had they known “professor” Chen’s job was working up a sweat in the college gym with coeds.
Finally, Phillip claims he was “appointed by Governor Pete Wilson to serve for the Governor’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning, where he worked on legislation involving foster care, gang prevention, drug awareness, mental health, and Planned Parenthood.”
Given the fact that Phillip Chen duped voters into electing him to the school board by making false claims, one has to wonder about whether Pete Wilson really entrusted a 20-year-old to do all that.
OC Political 
Walnut Watcher said
Which liar will the voters of AD55 end up with. The one who lies about his job, or the one that lies about her education. Pretty sad that this is the best that the Republican party can come up with. Asian voters are not going to be swung to the GOP by either of these jokers.
Kettle Black said
Insider you are such a hypocrite. On your last puff piece for Chang you said you were tired of “overtly biased” articles by Allen J. Wilson, then you go and post this garbage? You probably work for Chang’s campaign because all this info seems like opposition research and creatively crafted ways at discrediting Chen’s job. In addition to all his other activities Chen works for Supervisor Mike Antonovich and advises the Antonovich on issues facing the Board of Supervisors, much like OC Political publisher Chris Nguyen does and OC Political contributor Scott Carpenter does. I think they would find that characterization misleading. Also, your candidate Ling Ling’s campaign manager was also an advisor to a member of the Board of Supervisors as well, which may be who wrote this post or at least gave the creative way of describing Chen’s job. So ironically, the only dishonesty about Chen’s job is by this biased poster.
Jose said
Ok, so I’m waiting for Cris Nguyen to call out the Hatch Act for this candidate. I get it.It is the law and you were doing your duty and while Mr. Chen may be a good candidate, he is still working for an agency that is federally funded. So, if you called out me why aren’t you calling out this candidate?
Chris Nguyen said
It’s simple: the Hatch Act is inapplicable here.
1. Chen works for Supervisor Mike Antonovich, so he’s funded with 100% County funds, and zero federal funds.
2. The Hatch Act was significantly amended in December 2012 to drastically reduce the situations in which it applies.