SANTA ANA (CNS) – Continuing the fallout from the questionable use of jailhouse informants, a judge Tuesday punished Orange County prosecutors for misconduct in the case of a man charged with a 1988 murder in Sunset Beach, stripping a special circumstance allegation of torture from the case and prohibiting evidence of alleged incriminating statements the defendants made while in custody.
The ruling from San Diego County Superior Court Judge Daniel B. Goldstein singled out Orange County Superior Court Judge Ebrahim Baytieh, who prosecuted the case against Paul Gentile Smith, for making a “falsified statement” in the evidentiary hearing.
The ruling came down after weeks of hearings last year stemming from the informant scandal that originated in the case against Scott Dekraai, the worst mass killer in Orange County history.
Goldstein praised Senior Deputy District Attorney Seton Hunt and the current District Attorney’s Office for its “dedication to search for the truth” in the misconduct allegations. Goldstein rejected a request from Smith’s attorney, Scott Sanders of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, to dismiss the case entirely.
Smith will be retried for the 1988 killing of 29-year-old Robert Haugen. The case was reassigned to Goldstein because of the governmental misconduct allegations against Baytieh.
The evidentiary hearings in the Smith case began in April and carried on intermittently through the summer before closing arguments in December.
When Smith was convicted of killing Haugen in 2020 he pleaded guilty to attempting to solicit the murder of the lead investigator in the case, Sgt. Ray Wert of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Haugen was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and the conviction was upheld on appeal.
But in 2011, the case against Dekraai began to unravel when allegations surfaced deputies used informants illegally to solicit incriminating evidence against him. Ultimately, the death penalty was removed as a punishment for Dekraai, who eventually pleaded guilty to the murders, and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office was kicked off the case.
Smith sought a new trial in 2017 through the federal courts, seeking jail records to determine how jailhouse informants were used in his case. Orange County prosecutors in August 2021 conceded Smith’s rights were violated by the use of informants and agreed to a retrial.
That decision came as deputies involved in the prosecution of Smith invoked their 5th Amendment rights as an evidential hearing was scheduled in Orange County Superior Court.
Later, prosecutors also allowed Smith to withdraw his guilty pleas to the attempted murder of Wert and those charges were thrown out. Prosecutors also agreed to not use evidence from the informants in the retrial.
Smith sought to dismiss the murder charge in September 2023.
A major issue in the case was the use of informant Jeffrey Platt to elicit incriminating statements from the defendant for prosecutors to use against him, which is against the law when a defendant is represented by counsel as Smith was at the time. Attorneys refer to it as a Massiah violation. Also at issue was a withholding of evidence about informants, which attorneys refer to as a Brady violation.
Sanders argued that when it became clear to investigators that Platt violated the law they turned to a new informant, Arthur Palacios, who testified against Smith in his 2010 trial. Another jailhouse informant, Paul Martin, was also placed in a part of the day room to help with the effort to solicit evidence against Smith, Sanders said.
A critical piece of evidence in the hearing was the surfacing of a 15- year-old search warrant that appeared to contradict Baytieh’s testimony that he did not know about the use of informants Platt and Martin, Goldstein said in the December hearing.
Smith was caught nearly 20 years after Haugen’s killing when he was accused of torturing and stabbing his girlfriend, Tina Smith, in a Las Vegas hotel. DNA from that arrest triggered a hit from the 1988 crime scene.
Platt went as far as attempting to pretend to help the defendant in the solicitation to murder Wert.
“Platt eventually became hostile when (Tina Smith) and defendant wavered on their intent to harm Wert through Platt,” Goldstein said in his ruling.
During grand jury proceedings in 2009-10 there was no mention of Platt or Martin, Goldstein said.
In his testimony at the evidential hearing, Wert “acknowledged that he was concerned about the threats defendant made against him and his family but did not find there was an ethical conflict, despite being a targeted victim for the 2009 in-custody charges,” Goldstein wrote. “Wert testified that he did not coordinate with Baytieh to withhold certain items of evidence and he had no reason to believe that anyone on the investigative team intended to conceal information or evidence fro the prosecutor.”
Wert’s partner in the case, Sgt. Don Voght, also testified in the evidentiary hearing. Voght testified he did not believe Platt was an informant and thought he just came forward on his own with information helpful to investigators even though “that testimony contradicts” a log deputies kept of informants and “Voght’s own work on defendant’s case,” Goldstein wrote.
Voght “acknowledged that he identified Platt as (a confidential informant) in a search warrant he submitted to Baytieh for signature,” Goldstein wrote.
Baytieh testified that he “never received the missing records about Platt or Martin” that were wrongly withheld from Smith’s defense attorney. At trial, Baytieh gave information to defense attorneys that indicated Platt was a “potential co-conspirator” in the attempt on Wert’s life, Goldstein noted.
“Following the decision to shift the in-custody operation from Platt to Palacios, investigator (Bill) Beeman was placed undercover as someone named `Blade’ ” in the solicitation of Wert’s murder, Goldsten said.
“Baytieh offered no explanation for why he did not investigate or charge Platt in the initial solicitation to harm Wert if he was truly unaware that Platt was acting as a government agent,” Goldstein said.
Baytieh testified that the first time he saw a report identifying Platt as a snitch was in 2019 when the Department of Justice launched its investigation into the use of informants in Orange County’s jails. Baytieh also claimed that prior to that he “never read an interview report about Platt’s conversations with defendant, nor did he even listen to the interview that was recorded,” Goldstein said.
Another investigator in the case contradicted Baytieh’s testimony about how the missing report was found in a separate computer folder.
During the evidential hearing, another search of evidence turned up “four binders of unmarked and undisclosed materials,” Goldstein said. That includes 23 pieces of evidence related to the jail informant program never turned over as required to Smith.
Goldstein noted that the current prosecution team “has been amendable and a meaningful participant in uncovering the extent of the discovery violations.”
The prosecution team headed by Baytieh, who was tasked in the wake of the Dekraai scandal to train law enforcement on their Brady obligations, acted recklessly in a way that “reflected a conscious decision to not ensure constitutional obligations were being met,” Goldstein said, referring to how evidence was logged and tracked.
“In this and other cases, the prosecution team routinely chose to not examine evidence, request an evidence list, or search for statements unless specifically requested by the defense,” Goldstein said. “At a minimum, there was a complete indifference to complying with discovery obligations due to the absence of checks and balances within the prosecution team. At worst, there was a coordinated effort to conceal the use of informants and the resulting constitutional violations.”
Goldstein added in the Smith case the evidence linked to informants Platt and Martin was not disclosed the Platt’s existence in the case was concealed.
“Regardless of the 2009-2010 prosecution team’s intent, the manner in which evidence was logged and transferred between (sheriff’s deputies) and (prosecutors) was rife for abuse and exhibited a level of recklessness that bordered on bad faith,” Goldstein said.
Testimony in the evidentiary hearing from the investigators and Baytieh was “inconsistent at best,” Goldstein said.
“More importantly, the exhibits directly contradicted the witness testimony,” Goldstein said.
In fact, much of the evidence would have remained concealed if Goldstein hadn’t ordered another search, he noted.
“This material included key pieces of evidence that prove the prosecution team identified Platt as a (confidential informant) for this case and that would never have come to light had the parties not reviewed the records themselves,” Goldstein said. “This startling discovery came as a shock to all the parties and this court.”
The prosecution team knew of its legal obligations for turning over evidence to the defense “but ignored it by failing to maintain or create a centralized evidence list for the team’s reference, showing indifference to the ethical obligations imputed to all team members, regardless of their individual knowledge,” Goldsten said.
Baytieh was “so disinterested in fulfilling” his legal obligations “that he never once inspected the records or evidence unless it was at defense’s request,” Goldstein said.
The judge was skeptical of Baytieh’s claims he was unaware Platt was an informant and noted the veteran prosecutor signed a warrant acknowledging that fact.
“This leaves only two possibilities: either Baytieh did not actually review the warrant affidavit — in direct contradiction to his own signature; or he knew and deliberately concealed his knowledge of Platt in these and other proceedings,” Goldstein said.
“In either situation, Baytieh, a sworn prosecutor, made a falsified statement to the court. If Baytieh had truly been unaware that Platt was a confidential informant in defendant’s case, he should have immediately raised the issue upon seeing (the confidential informant) in the warrant. Yet, he remained silent.”
Baytieh’s “testimony was impeached not only by his signature on the warrant affidavit, but also by other witnesses,” Goldstein said.
His decision not to charge Platt as a co-conspirator was also a key tell he knew he was a snitch, the judge said.
“If Baytieh had truly been unaware and believed Platt was genuinely attempting to harm Wert and his family on the defendant’s behalf, there is no reasonable explanation why Platt was not indicted as part of the solicitation conspiracy that was charged.
“Yet Platt’s name was never mentioned during the grand jury proceedings. This inconsistency amounts to, at best gross negligence, and, at worst, additional evidence Baytieh was not truthful during these proceedings.”
Goldstein found Voght was “truthful and credible,” but slammed Wert for failing to book “multiple items of evidence” showing Platt’s role in the case. Goldstein said Wert’s personal involvement in the case could have colored “his decision-making related to his obligations in the case at the time.”
Goldstein also noted that Wert also directed the dumping of the so- called Special Handling Log on the use of confidential informants “after a court ordered the disclosure of the information on another case.”
The judge added “Here, the conduct by the prosecution team was reprehensible,” but it wouldn’t deprive Smith of a fair retrial.
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