Two entries at the bottom of the DuwayneMcClendon.com timeline are unsourced criminal claims: a May 16, 2025 arrest and a September 11, 2025 criminal case. Neither one links to a court document a reader can open and check. The earlier articles in this series describe the site as it looked on the day I captured each version, and they stay exactly as written. This article is dated September 19, 2026, and it is about what those two entries say now.
This article picks up where my latest update on the pattern of edits leaves off. You can see the full page as it stood that day in the September 19 archived PDF, a screenshot of the entire timeline. For the background, read my claim-by-claim fact-check and why a name is not a fingerprint.
What the Two Entries Actually Say
The first entry, dated May 16, 2025, says the person DuwayneMcClendon.com identifies was arrested by the Fullerton Police Department on a charge of H&S §11364(a), possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. It adds that bail and release date are “not available in public record” and that “no disposition information” was available at the time of publication.
The second entry, dated September 11, 2025, says the same person was charged in Orange County in case 26NM01277 with four counts: possession of a controlled substance (H&S §11377(a)), possession of drug paraphernalia (H&S §11364(a)), unlawful sale or use of fireworks (H&S §12671), and no evidence of current registration (VC §4000(a)(1), an infraction). It says counts one through three were placed on court-initiated misdemeanor diversion on June 15, 2026, that proof of completion was due at a hearing on September 15, 2026, and that the case status is “currently Diverted.”
Why Unsourced Criminal Claims Matter
Criminal allegations are among the most damaging things that can be attached to a name, and the site says its own purpose is to warn people who might do business with the person it identifies. When that is the goal, an entry that cannot be checked is not a small flaw.
The May 16 entry has no case number, no docket, no document, and no outcome. Its source line names a police department and a court, and that is all. A reader cannot tell what item was involved, whether a case was ever filed, or how anything ended. An arrest is an event, not a finding, and an entry that admits it has no disposition is asking readers to fill the gap themselves.
That matters even more because of the point I keep returning to: a name is not a fingerprint. Before any record means anything, the publisher has to show whose record it is, and neither entry shows its work.
What I Found When I Searched the Court’s Portal
On September 19, 2026, I searched the Orange County Superior Court public portal by name for the years 2022 through 2026 and got no results. I also searched by the full case number the site cites, 26NM01277, and it was not found.
When I look these cases up today, they are not there. That tells me one of a few things: the case was dismissed and no longer shows in the public index, the record is no longer displayed for some other reason, or the portal’s search did not return it. It is my understanding that the case has been dismissed, but I do not have the court’s dismissal document yet, so I am presenting that as my understanding and not as a verified finding.
I am not saying the case never happened. On August 24, my own review located a court page for case 26NM01277 showing a misdemeanor case with the status Diverted and a June 15, 2026 diversion order, and I documented it in the fact-check. The portal itself also warns that name searches may not always reflect accurate name and case associations, and what a record displays can change over time.
What I can say is narrower. The site’s entry gives no link and no document, so a reader has to run that search alone, and on the day I tried, it did not return the case. That is the problem with an unsourced entry: the publisher wants readers to trust it, and the reader has nothing to check it against.
The Status Line Is Out of Date
By its own account, the site says proof of completion was due at a hearing on September 15, 2026. That date has passed, and the entry still reads “currently Diverted.” A timeline that claims to track public records should either update the status or say the status is unknown. Leaving an old status in place reads as current, and if the case has since been dismissed, as I understand it has, the entry is wrong in a second way.
Arrest, Charge, and Diversion Are Different Words
The September 11 entry is headlined “Charged” and lists four counts. Its own text says counts one through three went to court-initiated misdemeanor diversion. Under California’s misdemeanor diversion law, Penal Code §1001.95, a judge can divert a case, and completing the program leads to dismissal. Diversion is not a conviction and it is not a finding of guilt.
A publisher who presents this as careful public-record research should have stated the disposition plainly, in the headline or the first line, rather than leaving readers to absorb a list of statute numbers first. Arrested is not charged, charged is not convicted, and diverted is not convicted either.
A Question the Publisher Never Answered
The site never says what item was involved in the paraphernalia entries. That omission matters because California law treats some items differently. Under guidance the California Department of Public Health sent to providers in January 2022, a person who obtains a pipe from an authorized harm reduction program (SSP) is exempt from prosecution for having it.
To be clear, H&S §11364(a) and §11377(a) are still criminal statutes, and I am not saying otherwise. But it is my assumption, and only an assumption, that if the item was a pipe obtained from an SSP, that could explain why a case like this ended in diversion rather than a conviction. The court record does not say why the case was diverted, and neither does the site. A publisher who claims to have done careful research should have looked at the statutes and the disposition before implying wrongdoing.
What I’m Asking the Publisher to Do
- Publish the case number for the May 16, 2025 entry, or state clearly that no case number is known.
- Link the court record that supports case 26NM01277 so readers can check it themselves.
- State the disposition in plain words, including that diversion is not a conviction.
- Update or remove the “currently Diverted” status now that the September 15, 2026 hearing date has passed.
If a court record surfaces that shows something different from what I have described here, I will correct this article. If it shows the case was dismissed, I will say so plainly and with the date. That has been the standard from the start of this series, and it applies to my own work as much as to theirs.
The Bottom Line
Two entries at the bottom of DuwayneMcClendon.com put criminal allegations next to a name with no sourcing a reader can check. The May 16 entry cannot be traced to any case. The September 11 entry did not come up in the court’s public portal by name or by case number on September 19, even though I documented a court page for it on August 24, and it is my understanding that the case has since been dismissed. The diversion status is out of date by the site’s own dates, and the site never explains what happened or why. Public records are supposed to let readers verify. These entries only ask readers to trust.
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