Orange County Sheriff's Deputies' Once-Secret Log On Jail

Informants Reveals Rampant Misconduct

LOS ANGELES -?An Orange County Superior Court judge released a trove of notes from a once-
secret document kept by sheriff's deputies detailing their involvement in a tainted informant
program that has allegedly violated the rights of numerous defendants for years. The behavior of
prosecutors and members of law enforcement described in the log raises significant questions about
decades' worth of criminal convictions in Orange County.

The 242 pages of notes, made public for the first time Monday by Judge Thomas Goethals, reveal the
inner workings of the county's infamous informant program, and appears to contradict testimony
given by some deputies who had previously denied knowledge of working with informants. The notes
also describe deputies' recruitment and utilization of informants; destruction and falsifying of
documents; collaboration with prosecutors and other local law enforcement agencies while
operating "capers" to glean further evidence from inmates; and?other unconstitutional scams they
used to trick inmates into confessing to crimes.

The pages represent just a fraction of the total 1,157-page database, still largely under seal, which
was in use between 2008 and 2013 and maintained by sheriff's deputies who work in a branch of the
department called "special handling," which specifically deals with inmates and jail informants.

The log contains multiple entries from two deputies, William Grover and Ben Garcia, who testified
during special evidentiary hearings on jailhouse informants heard in the case of Scott Dekraai.
Dekraai has pleaded guilty to killing his ex-wife and seven other people at a Seal Beach hair salon in
2011, and is awaiting a penalty phase of his case. Another deputy who also testified during Dekraai
proceedings, Seth Tunstall, is not the author of any entries but is referenced in several. In a previous
ruling, Goethals called out Tunstall and Garcia for having "either intentionally lied or willfully
withheld information" during their testimony in the Dekraai case. Their log entries profoundly
contradict their testimony on jail informants.

While Goethals did not specifically call out Grover, there are numerous entries by the deputy in the
log that reveal a deep level of understanding and involvement with informants, working with them in
the jail and interviewing them. This stands in stark contrast to?his 2014 testimony,?when he said, "I
don't work with informants. I rarely work with informants. And to be honest with you, I try and avoid
jailhouse informants."

For Dekraai and his legal team, though, the biggest bombshell may be an entry showing that Grover
had a secret meeting with the informant Fernando Perez - just two days before Perez claimed to
have received a confession from Dekraai. While Grover testified that he only "heard" Perez was an
informant, the deputy documents numerous meetings with Perez within the log.?

Tunstall, who admitted to cultivating and developing confidential informants in the jail at one point
only to later disavow those statements by?claiming he used the "wrong" words, is revealed in the log
to handle informants with such mastery that his fellow deputies requested that he "teach [the
deputies] what it takes to cultivate a [confidential informant] on the street and walk us through all
the paperwork needed for such."?
Orange County Sheriffs Department

Garcia and Grover both make separate entries that seem to describe the "shredding" of "old"
documents related to the special handling unit. In another entry, Grover describes a "purge"
that?he, Garcia and another deputy did of old files in a desk drawer.

Orange County Sheriffs Department

The log also contains an entry describing a meeting between various sheriff's deputies who discuss
that they will stop using the special handling log and indicating the existence of a newer log - one
that has yet to be turned over - that the deputies describe is for "important information
sharing."?That meeting took place eight days before the last entry was made in the special handling
log, on Jan. 31, 2013.
Orange County Sheriffs Department

All three deputies remain employed by OCSD, department spokesman Lt. Mark Stichter told The
Huffington Post. Stichter declined to comment on whether the deputies have faced any discipline,
however, he told the Los Angeles Times in October that the deputies had not been penalized.

Yet nine months after the SH log first came to light, the Sheriff's Department has still not offered its
explanation as to why the database was abruptly halted in 2013, just days after Goethals issued a
broad order to turn over such information in the Dekraai case. Stichter told HuffPost in August that
the agency is still trying to determine?why the database ended. Goethals has ordered the Sheriff's
Department to turn over the "important information sharing" document on?Dec. 16?or be prepared
to have deputies face questioning on the issue.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Department continues to deny that a formal jail informant program even
exists - despite evidence, like the 1,157-page log, that would seemingly undermine such denials.

The release of the log pages comes less than two weeks after a California appeals court affirmed
Goethals' 2015 decision to eject the entire Orange County District Attorney's Office from the Dekraai
case over his findings of significant misconduct in their use of jailhouse informants.

Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders should have received a copy of the log years ago, when a
court ordered the OCSD to turn over just this kind of material. Indeed, Goethals blasted Sheriff
Sandra Hutchens?in court for months over the lengthy delay in turning over the log.?

Sanders has been arguing for years that a tainted snitch network in county jails has existed in secret
for decades - and the release of the log pages significantly bolsters that argument.?In a series of
blockbuster motions, the defense attorney has gone on to unearth damning evidence pointing to the
program's existence, alleging that county prosecutors and police have violated multiple defendants'
rights by illegally obtaining and sometimes withholding evidence received from jail informants.?His
discoveries have led to multiple murder cases in the county unraveling, even resulting in some
accused murderers?having their sentences vacated.?

Law enforcement authorities use informants to help bolster a case -- a tactic that's perfectly legal,
even when the snitch receives something in exchange. But Sanders alleges that in some Orange
County cases, informants held recorded and unrecorded conversations with inmates who were
already represented by lawyers,?which violates an inmate's right to counsel. Prosecutors then
allegedly took damning evidence gathered by the informants and presented it in court, while
withholding evidence that could have been beneficial to the defense -- which is a violation of a
defendant's right to due process.?

On Monday, Hutchens released a statement outlining the steps that OCSD has taken since the
discovery of the log, including the disbanding of the special handling unit and the formation of a new
unit with similar responsibilities called the custody intelligence unit, which Hutchens promises is not
a "reincarnation" of the dissolved unit.
It remains unclear exactly how many cases in the county may have been affected by tainted
informant evidence, but Sanders has argued that every case involving a jailhouse informant in
Orange County over the last three decades deserves to be re-examined.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/orange-country-sheriff-deputies-jail-informant_us_5845d6e6e4
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