Orange County public defenders take aim at Sheriff’s Department and DA’s Office in filing
Orange County sheriff’s deputies singled out for potential criminal charges for mishandling evidence, lying and worse were promoted, not prosecuted, while district attorney’s officials hid record of the deputies’ repeated misconduct from the public and defense attorneys, Orange County public defenders have alleged in court filings.
Allegations of light punishment from sheriff’s officials and Orange County prosecutors’ cover-up of deputies who engaged in repeated misconduct run through pages of filings by Orange County deputy public defender Scott Sanders filed Dec. 30.
Sanders appeared before an Orange County judge Monday demanding records related to damning internal Sheriff’s Department audits uncovered in November. The reports showed hundreds of deputies tampered with evidence or lied about filing evidence on a nearly department-wide scale potentially upending thousands of criminal cases in one of California’s most populous counties.
The audits “revealed that deputies routinely violate this policy, often at an astounding level,” Sanders wrote in a Nov. 15 motion.
Fifteen deputies were singled out by sheriff’s leaders for alleged misconduct, presented to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer as among the department’s most serious offenders.
“The deputies referred to for criminal prosecution wrote reports in which they collectively described having seized well in excess of 100 items of evidence that were never booked — or, alternatively, lied about having seized items in the first place,” Sanders argued in the documents filed Dec. 30 in Orange Superior Court.
Firings and punishments, but no charges
Four sheriff’s deputies were fired, seven others were disciplined and four more were still being investigated by department officials, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes announced in November after the Orange County Register uncovered the first of two secret audits that revealed hundreds of Barnes’ deputies failed to book evidence on time. Barnes at the time said his department had “no patience for substandard performance or criminal behavior.”
A secondary audit obtained by The Sacramento Bee in the days after Barnes’ statement showed dozens of other deputies lied about the evidence they collected, failing to book evidence they claimed to have seized.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said at the time that the evidence lies exposed in the second audit potentially jeopardized dozens of cases charged and prosecuted by his attorneys based on the deputies’ bogus reports.
But Spitzer declined to file criminal charges against any of the 15 deputies. Orange County prosecutors did not add the offending officers’ names to their roster of “Brady” cops — the list of chronically untruthful officers prosecutors are legally bound to send to defendants and their attorneys. The first criminal referrals for the deputies’ misconduct crossed district attorneys’ desks as early as 2017, Spitzer said in November at the dawn of the scandal.
“Brady” refers to Brady v. Maryland, the landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision that compels prosecutors to hand over all evidence to defense that might clear defendants of the charges against them.
Sanders argued more information was needed to determine whether the Orange County DA’s office directed an effort to sit on evidence booking-related misconduct; and whether cases impacted by the misconduct should be tossed out.
At the sheriff’s office, deputies’ promotions weren’t held back by their performance or their behavior, while in the DA’s office, prosecutors tried to keep defense attorneys in the dark over the cops’ conduct, Sanders argued.
District Attorney’s officials this week said they began backfilling their Brady list weeks after Spitzer took office and continue to review the remaining deputies “identified in connection with the improper booking of evidence..”
In an email Wednesday, District Attorney’s spokeswoman Kimberly Edds maintained that it wasn’t until the evidence audits were revealed in November that DA’s officials knew of a systemic problem with sheriff’s personnel failing to properly book evidence.
“Just weeks after taking office, District Attorney Spitzer added several Sheriff’s deputies to the District Attorney’s Brady Notification System where they legally belong. This included deputies who were accused of failing to properly book evidence according to Sheriff’s Department policy, “ Edds said in the statement.
But Sanders blasted Barnes and sheriff’s officials in his motion for “creating a cover story of accountability in the event the audit cover-up was revealed,” confident that the DA’s Office “lacked the slightest interest in prosecuting.”
Some still on the job, others promoted
At least two of the deputies were promoted to sergeant and a third — Victor Valdez, a deputy accused of ordering a confidential informant to inject a murder suspect with heroin so he could be more easily captured by police — kept his job after a three-week unpaid suspension, Sanders argued in the filing.
The allegations related to the case of Craig Tanber, a white supremacist gang member accused of fatally stabbing a man outside a Laguna Niguel bar in 2015, triggered criminal and internal investigations that spun off yet more misconduct allegations against Valdez that placed him among the 15 deputies referred to Spitzer’s office for possible criminal charges for:
▪ Failing 67 times to book recorded interviews with suspects and witnesses, according to testimony at Tanber’s 2019 court hearing,
▪ Secretly and illegally recording telephone calls with Orange County District Attorney’s prosecutors, and
▪ “Improper handling of and contact with” the confidential informant, Sanders wrote in court papers.
Deputy Sgt. Philip Avalos also testified at Tanber’s hearings. He was alleged to have had improper communication with the informant.
Attorneys in the Tanber case learned Avalos claimed to have collected evidence in four cases that was never booked. That was enough to earn Avalos a 60-hour suspension without pay and a spot among the 15 deputies slated for the DA’s office, Sanders argued, but Avalos still rose from deputy to sergeant.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Sanders argued, “would soon show that for some of its personnel, misconduct is not the slightest impediment to advancement.”.
The 15 also included Brant Lewis, the lead deputy in the case of Sanders’ client, Raymond Lopez Varelas.
Sanders alleged Lewis and arresting Orange County deputies wrote false reports, hid evidence and trumped up charges against Varelas in July as payback because Varelas would not become their drug informant.
Varelas was arrested on drug charges in July by an Orange County deputy who told Varelas he’d forget about it if he agreed to buy narcotics as a drug informant, according to Orange Superior Court records obtained by The Bee.
When Varelas declined, the deputy added a gang enhancement — a charge that could subject Varelas, a 59-year-old career criminal — to life in state prison.
Lewis remains on duty.
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 12:47 PM.
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