Testifying in an evidentiary hearing into alleged illegal use of jailhouse informants in a 1988 Seal Beach murder case, a retired Orange County sheriff’s investigator said Tuesday he gathered evidence in the case that potentially could have been favorable to the defense, but he doesn’t know why prosecutors didn’t learn about it until years after the defendant’s conviction.
San Diego County Superior Court Judge Daniel B. Goldstein is overseeing the evidentiary hearing, which began Tuesday, in the case of Paul Gentile Smith, 64, who is charged with killing 29-year-old Robert Haugen in Sunset Beach on Oct. 24, 1988.
Smith was convicted in 2010 of murder with special circumstance allegations of torture and robbery, and he pleaded guilty to solicitation to kill or attack the lead investigator in the case, sheriff’s investigator Raymond Wert.
Three years ago, prosecutors capitulated on a motion for a new trial on the eve of a scheduled evidentiary hearing in the case granted by Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue. The hearing stemmed from allegations that prosecutors failed to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys.
Prosecutors also later dismissed charges related to the alleged plot by Smith to solicit an attack or murder of Wert.
In 2022, the prosecutor in the 2010 trial, Ebrahim Baytieh — who has since been elected an Orange County Superior Court judge — was fired by District Attorney Todd Spitzer, who cited the alleged failure to turn over evidence in the case as required by law. Last year, the case was sent to Goldstein, who is overseeing a hearing on defense attorney Scott Sanders’ motion to dismiss the case on grounds of outrageous governmental conduct over the jail informant issue.
Baytieh is scheduled to take the stand in the hearing sometime in June.
On Tuesday, retired investigator Bill Beeman testified about his involvement in the investigation of the alleged solicitation for murder of Wert. Beeman said he worked in the sheriff’s special operations unit in 2009 and was alerted to the threat against Wert that was allegedly made while Smith was locked up in Las Vegas.
Beeman said he determined when Smith would be transferred to Orange County and then he requested a tap of Smith’s phone calls from the jail and a review of all of his mail.
“I’m doing that to protect Ray Wert and his family,” Beeman said.
Sanders questioned Beeman on how seriously he took a 2009 phone call he monitored in which Smith declared to confidential informant Jeffrey Platt that he was “relieved” that DNA evidence would be reviewed in the murder case, because he felt it would exonerate him.
Beeman responded that he didn’t put much stock in that claim, noting, “Inmates know calls are being recorded all the time so obviously they’re not going to profess their guilt on a call that’s monitored.”
Sanders asked, “You decided that this is not a high priority, the defendant is speaking of his innocence and that’s not important to you?”
“I booked the call into evidence,” Beeman responded.
“Are all statements from a defendant to a witness acknowledging participation in a crime — are they all important?” Sanders asked.
“Yes,” Beeman replied. “Inmates would talk on the phone and proclaim their innocence and think that would clear them of their crime if they professed their innocence on a jailhouse call. … That doesn’t mean that’s the truth. … I booked the call into evidence.”
Beeman had been a handler for Platt and even went to bat for him at his sentencing in 2011 for his informant work on Operation Stormfront, which targeted white supremacist gangs, he testified. But Beeman said he did not work with Platt on the Smith case.
Platt started working as an informant on Operation Stormfront when he got out of custody, Beeman said. It was while monitoring Smith’s phone calls that he realized Platt was apparently working the Smith case.
“I realized he played more of a role on his own accord, acting as an informant and wasn’t doing what he was told he was supposed to be working on — on Operation Stormfront — and not have any involvement in the solicitation case,” Beeman said.
“He was taking a bigger role than he was supposed to?” Sanders asked.
“On his own, yeah,” Beeman said. “But at this point I believe I let Wert and (former Sgt. Donald Voght) know,” and they did another interview with Platt.
Sanders alleges Platt was violating the law by questioning a fellow inmate who was represented by an attorney — information defense attorneys did not have during Smith’s trial.
“When I found out he (Platt) was doing stuff on his own that’s when I let his handler know,” Beeman said. “I said make sure he doesn’t do that again. I believe it was three days later that Wert and Voght re-interviewed him (in July 2009).”
Sanders has argued that when Baytieh realized the mistake, he turned to another informant, Arthur Palacios, who Sanders said falsely claimed he overheard Smith talking about the murder.
Beeman said he never took the recorded phone call between Smith and Platt to Baytieh, but just booked it into evidence.
Beeman did not want Platt working on the solicitation case, he testified under questioning from Senior Deputy District Attorney Seton Hunt.
“First off, he was working Operation Stormfront,” Beeman said. “And he was an (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) informant. I wanted somebody in custody to get the information. … I wanted Art Palacios to get the information so I could handle any communications with Paul Smith.”
But Beeman denied that he ever asked anyone in custody to pump a fellow inmate for information about a charged crime when the defendant was represented by an attorney.
“Because you knew it would be a violation of the Sixth Amendment?” Sanders asked.
“Yes,” Beeman said.
Beeman said he did not know why some evidence he collected was transmitted to prosecutors and never made it to defense attorneys for Smith.
“Everything was booked into evidence as it should have been,” Beeman said. “It was human error and information was not communicated to the District Attorney’s Office.”
Beeman said under questioning from Goldstein that he wasn’t aware of the mistakes until years later.
“I think it was 2022,” he said. “The entire time I assumed they had everything.”
When Goldstein asked him how he found out about the error, he said, “Maybe it was the (U.S. Department of Justice) interview I prepped for.”
Beeman said he spoke with Justice Department investigators reviewing the informant scandal stemming from the case against Scott Dekraai, the worst mass killer in Orange County history, in 2019.
“Once you were aware there was a problem were you even employed by the Sheriff’s Department at the time?” Hunt asked Beeman.
“No,” he said.
Under questioning from Goldstein, Beeman said he “very rarely” worked with informants.
“Several times other officers would call me in to vet an informant because they know how much intelligence I had on the phone” calls from the jail inmates, he testified.
When asked by Goldstein how he was trained to handle informants, Beeman said, “I believe it was from my peers on the gang unit, and then later in my career we had informant training.”
Baytieh led that training for sheriff’s deputies in the wake of the Dekraai scandal.
When Beeman said he made a distinction between informants, who were being directed by investigators, and jailhouse “snitches,” Goldstein said he found his observation “circuitous,” but “irrelevant” to the issue at hand, prompting Sanders to say he wanted the judge to draw a “negative inference” from the response.
“I already have the data, Mr. Sanders,” Goldstein responded.
Sanders has subpoenaed Baytieh’s personnel records, which will likely trigger a response from the county counsel’s office. Baytieh is expected to testify in June.