For nearly three years, families living along a quiet dirt road in Templeton stopped feeling at home.
They installed surveillance cameras. They learned to recognize the sound of an approaching engine before it rounded the bend. They woke to bright lights outside bedroom windows and spent countless evenings wondering what might happen next.
Recently, the years-long ordeal culminated in a felony conviction.
David Allen Leader, chair of the Templeton Area Advisory Group (TAAG), pleaded guilty July on 22 to felony vandalism and seven misdemeanor counts of violating court orders, resolving two criminal cases in which he had faced 32 charges tied to what the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office described as an escalating pattern of harassment against eight neighbors living along a private road in the Templeton area.
For the families who obtained restraining orders against Leader, the guilty plea brought relief but not necessarily peace of mind.
New Times interviewed members of the three households protected by those restraining orders. They wished to remain anonymous.
“It was custom tailored harassment,” one neighbor told New Times. “Whatever bothers you is what he does. It’s been two and a half years of hell here.”
The conflict traces back to disagreements over a private road easement, but according to court filings and interviews with residents, the situation devolved.
Neighbors described Leader repeatedly revving engines, speeding down the narrow dirt road, stopping outside homes to stare toward windows and surveillance cameras, shining bright lights into bedrooms after midnight, unlawfully firing a gun, driving onto private property, and making repeated gestures toward residents despite the multiple restraining orders.
One family estimated that they amassed roughly 2,000 surveillance videos documenting the encounters over nearly three years.
Among the incidents the neighbors said they will never forget was a surveillance image captured around 1 a.m. in 2024 showing a figure lurking on private property dressed in what was eventually identified as a ghillie suit—camouflage commonly associated with snipers. Prosecutors later alleged Leader vandalized signs and stole a surveillance camera during the incident.
“Everybody in the neighborhood has a visceral emotional reaction to that photo,” one neighbor recalled.
In another incident, recorded in a court filing accessed by New Times in February, Leader allegedly drove his employer’s truck toward a neighbor operating a tractor on the private road while honking, backed up, and then drove toward the neighbor again before he “slammed on his breaks and stopped just shy of … [the] tractor.”
Court records show the criminal cases continued to grow as prosecutors alleged that Leader repeatedly violated restraining orders even after judicial warnings and escalating bail amounts.
“This defendant will simply not stop and control his rage and deranged need for revenge against his neighbors,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
On April 3, Leader was booked in the SLO County Jail for violating multiple restraining orders and released that evening on $270,000 bail. He had previously lost bail amounts of $35,000, $50,000, and $85,000 in related cases, which prosecutors previously described as “unheard of in a misdemeanor case.”
When New Times first reported on the case in February, Leader faced 24 misdemeanor charges. By the time the cases were consolidated this July, prosecutors had filed 32 criminal charges before reaching a negotiated plea agreement.
Leader consistently denied many of the allegations before entering a plea deal. Earlier this year, he told New Times that neighbors’ claims were “simply not true.”
“Neighbors don’t have to like one another, but they do have to respect the law and one another’s right to live in peace,” District Attorney Dan Dow said in a July 23 statement. “It is never OK to terrorize the people who live around you.”
Leader was sentenced to two years of felony probation, ordered to serve 30 days in county jail, and accepted a suspended two-year county jail sentence that could be imposed if he violates probation. He also agreed not to seek early termination of probation and cannot operate an ATV, quad, or motorcycle on the neighborhood road during that period.
The three households said they felt relief about the guilty plea but said they weren’t confident it would stop him.
“He’ll do it again,” a neighbor said. “It’s highly likely. He never stopped.”
Leader was appointed chair of the Templeton Area Advisory Group in January, while the criminal cases were pending. TAAG advises San Luis Obispo County on land use and planning issues affecting Templeton.
On April 16, the advisory group amended its bylaws. Among several revisions was the removal of a provision stating that a “conviction of a felony” constituted grounds for removing a board member. Under the revised language, members may instead be removed for misconduct involving violations of TAAG bylaws or policy guidelines.
Following Leader’s felony conviction, the neighbors said that timing deserves scrutiny.
New Times asked TAAG whether Leader intends to remain chair following his conviction, whether the board plans to reconsider his leadership, and why it removed felony convictions from its bylaws before his case concluded. The advisory group did not respond before publication.
Leader’s sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 19. ∆
This article appears in July 30- August 6, 2026.
