(This story was updated with new information.)
Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez pleaded guilty on Tuesday, March 24, to a felony conflict-of-interest charge and said he will resign from office. The conviction will likely bar him from ever holding public office again.
Hernandez will not serve prison time and will be on probation for two years, court records show.
On Tuesday evening, hours after pleading guilty, Hernandez said he will resign as mayor, calling his two decades serving Coachella the “honor of a lifetime.” In a statement sent through his attorney, he added that he chose to resolve the case to bring the “matter to a close” and plans to spend more time with his family.
“Together we delivered lasting results for Coachella. We transformed our city and strengthened our community. I will always be proud of our accomplishments,” Hernandez said. “Now, it is time to begin a new chapter as a private citizen.”
He pleaded guilty in Riverside County Superior Court to having a financial interest in a matter that came before the city government. The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Tuesday that “the conviction stems from Hernandez’s involvement in votes and actions related to a contract between the City of Coachella and the Coachella Valley Association of Government’s Housing First Program.”
Under Hernandez’s plea deal with the DA’s office, four felony perjury counts and four misdemeanor counts of voting on matters in which he had a conflict of interest were dismissed.
Hernandez was sentenced to one day in jail, which he already served after being charged, and 200 hours of community service.
As a crime he committed while in office, the crime legally bars him from continuing as mayor. The California Constitution says people convicted of “malfeasance in office” cannot hold public office. And in its statement, the district attorney’s office said Hernandez will be permanently disqualified from serving in any public office in California.
The City of Coachella was silent on the plea; no one affiliated with the city appeared to have issued any statements, and there was no mention of the mayor’s conviction on any of the city’s web or social media pages. City Manager Bill Pattison and Mayor Pro Tem Frank Figueroa also had not responded to requests for comment from The Desert Sun as of early Tuesday evening.
The guilty plea and conviction came just under six months after Hernandez’s arrest in October 2025. An indictment that was unsealed a few days after the arrest outlined votes related to four development projects in downtown Coachella that prosecutors alleged constituted a conflict of interest.
The indictment also listed a vote on the Housing First program. The indictment stated that the perjury charges had stemmed from Hernandez’s failure to accurately disclose income from a property he owned.
The indictment also listed 13 people who testified before a grand jury that met to determine whether there had been evidence to charge Hernandez. Among the 13 people who testified were current and former city councilmembers.
Hernandez, who had served as Coachella’s mayor since 2012, has been a fixture of eastern Coachella Valley politics for about two decades. He was 26 years old when he was first elected to Coachella’s city council in 2006. In addition to being mayor, Hernandez served as the chief of staff for Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, whose district is dominated by the Coachella Valley.
Shortly before his arraignment, Hernandez was placed on leave from his role in Perez’s office. Perez released a statement at the time in which he called the allegations against Hernandez “serious” and said it was his understanding that the charges were unrelated to his role in Perez’s office.
As mayor, Hernandez also served as a member of the executive committee for the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, the regional planning agency that coordinates government services in the valley.
Hernandez was most recently re-elected mayor in 2024, when he defeated City Councilmember Frank Figueroa by about 10 percentage points. He was re-elected in 2020 by about eight percentage points.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez pleads guilty to felony and resigns
Reporting by Paul Albani-Burgio and Jennifer Cortez, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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