San Jacinto City Council candidate Brian Hawkins was arrested on suspicion of vehicle-registration fraud, just days before voters decide whether to send him back to the dais. The 48-year-old pastor, who already served one term on the council, was taken into custody on Thursday and booked into a detention center before being released on bail the same day.
Hawkins was arrested by San Jacinto officers on an outstanding warrant tied to vehicle-registration fraud, according to The Press-Enterprise. He was booked into the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center in French Valley and released on bail that same day, the outlet reported. Vehicle registration fraud can be considered a felony in California, and complaint documents allege Hawkins tried to pass off forged vehicle ownership and registration paperwork as genuine, with the conduct dated to June 12, 2026.
According to the same account, charges were filed against Hawkins on Sept. 24, 2026, and he now has an arraignment set for Dec. 15, 2026 — attributions both credited to Molly Smith in the newspaper's reporting. The Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which has a contract with San Jacinto for police protection, said its investigation is continuing. A department spokesperson, Lt. Deirdre Vickers, said further details were unavailable.
Hawkins Denies Wrongdoing, Points to a Traffic Stop
Hawkins denied any wrongdoing after his arrest and said he has never committed registration fraud. He told the paper he was campaigning in San Jacinto when he was taken into custody and said he was shocked by the arrest. He also said he was not read his rights and that officers did not ask him about the registration on his Tesla, which he said is registered under his mother's name.
Per the same report, Hawkins said Hemet police stopped him in June for an obstructed license plate, that he paid off the resulting ticket, and that the Tesla was impounded and later released. He said a court date was scheduled for November and insisted there was nothing fraudulent about his vehicle tags, his car, or his insurance.
After the arrest, Hawkins posted a video appealing directly to San Jacinto voters, asking them to continue supporting him. He said he has always been available, transparent and accountable, and added that he would continue to serve the community whether or not he is elected next week.
A Council Seat Lost, Then Sought Again
Hawkins was first elected to the San Jacinto City Council in 2020 and served a term before seeking reelection in November 2024. He finished fourth in that race, as Crystal Ruiz, Phil Ayala and Clarisa Sanchez took the three open seats — unofficial results at the time showed Ruiz with 4,928 votes, Ayala with 4,018, Sanchez with 3,677 and Hawkins with 3,487, with Sanchez edging him out by 190 votes. He is now one of four candidates seeking two open seats in the city council race set for Nov. 3, 2026.
This is not Hawkins's first brush with the criminal justice system while seeking office. He was arrested in July 2023, while running for Congress, on suspicion of assault causing great bodily injury and corporal injury on a child, after deputies responded to a report that he had assaulted two children in San Jacinto. Prosecutors later downgraded the case to two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, to which Hawkins pleaded not guilty, and a Superior Court judge ordered him to stay away from the children involved, according to earlier Press-Enterprise coverage. A lower-confidence Press-Enterprise search result indicates Hawkins was acquitted of two misdemeanors of willful child cruelty in January 2025, though that outcome was not independently confirmed in the sourcing reviewed for this report.
A Pattern of Runs for Higher Office
Hawkins's political ambitions have repeatedly reached beyond San Jacinto's council chambers. In 2022 he mounted an unsuccessful Republican bid for Congress against Rep. Raul Ruiz, a Democrat from Palm Desert, as reported by Patch. The following year, in May 2023, he filed papers to run for Congress again — this time as a Democrat against Rep. Ken Calvert, a Republican from Corona.
Hawkins also works as a pastor at Divine Appointment Worship Center in San Jacinto. Under the city's election rules, candidates must reside and be registered to vote within San Jacinto when nomination papers are issued, according to the City of San Jacinto. With the sheriff's investigation still open and an arraignment not scheduled until mid-December, voters will decide Hawkins's political fate well before the courts resolve the fraud allegations against him.
