A defense attorney who uncovered the Orange County jail-informant scandal that upended the death penalty case against the worst mass killer in county history has filed a new round of allegations. He accuses a former prosecutor, who is now a Superior Court judge, of leading the illegal use of jailhouse snitches. These allegations could potentially taint nearly 100 cases.
The defense attorney, Orange County Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, raised these new allegations in a 409-page motion filed in the murder retrial of Paul Gentile Smith. Smith is accused of killing Robert Haugen in Sunset Beach on October 24, 1988.
Smith’s previous conviction was overturned two years ago due to alleged misconduct by a sheriff’s investigator. Last year, prosecutors moved to dismiss charges Smith had pleaded guilty to for allegedly soliciting an attack on an Orange County sheriff’s sergeant. The allegations against the former prosecutor, now Superior Court judge Ebrahim Baytieh, have emerged within this context.
Baytieh was fired by District Attorney Todd Spitzer in February of last year. This action was taken after allegations of misconduct in Smith’s case led Spitzer’s office to grant a retrial for the defendant. Baytieh also faced criticism in a Department of Justice report, which was prompted by the informant scandal in the case of Scott Dekraai, the worst mass killer in county history.
In the Smith case, Baytieh was faulted for failing to disclose information about an informant used in the trial to defense attorneys. Sheriff’s investigators subsequently invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, intensifying the decision to grant a retrial for Smith.
Sanders, who also represented Dekraai, is now seeking a similar evidentiary hearing in the Smith case, arguing that charges against the defendant should be dismissed.
In both the Dekraai and Smith cases, Sanders alleges that prosecutors and sheriff’s investigators illegally used jailhouse informants to gather incriminating information that was used in the trials. Sanders also claims that investigators withheld evidence of the use of informants from Smith’s defense team.
“The wrongdoing has been carried out through individual acts, as well as those committed in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy led by (Baytieh),” Sanders wrote in the motion filed Thursday.
According to Sanders, numerous individuals, including former Sgt. Donald Voght and former investigator Bill Beeman, as well as sheriff’s Sgts. Anton Pereyra, Michael Padilla, Michael Carrillo, and Capt. Joseph Sandoval, participated in the alleged conspiracy.
Baytieh’s attorney did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
In response to a request for comment, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s office pointed to a statement it issued in February 2022, when Baytieh was fired. The statement claimed that Spitzer does not condone a “win at all costs” approach to prosecutions.
Sanders argued in the motion that inmates Jeffrey Platt and Paul Martin were “undisclosed informants, who had been secretly assigned to Smith’s dayroom along with veteran informant Arthur Palacios.” Sanders accuses Baytieh and prosecutors of attempting to bury a recording of Platt providing incriminating information.
Sanders also alleges that an exculpatory recorded telephone call between Smith and Platt, which contradicts Smith’s confession to the crime, was never turned over to defense attorneys.
“The misconduct paved the way for Smith’s conviction and preserved an ill-gotten winning streak for California’s 2012 Prosecutor of the Year,” Sanders wrote, referring to Baytieh.
In the motion, Sanders cited 98 cases involving allegations of evidence-withholding misconduct, all involving Baytieh. Sanders claims that 45 of these cases involve murder charges.
Sanders also alleges that Baytieh led an effort to keep a “long-hidden Special Handling Log of notes written by deputies who managed the jailhouse informant program” from defense attorneys. These notes played a crucial role in both the Dekraai and Wozniak cases.
Sanders argued that the attempts to conceal the log from defense attorneys were not revealed to federal prosecutors examining the initial informant scandal, accusing Baytieh of deceiving federal prosecutors during that review.
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