A 65-year-old man whose murder trial was affected by the continuing fallout from the jailhouse informants scandal in Orange County accepted a plea deal Monday that will net him five more years behind bars.
Paul Gentile Smith pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in connection with a 1988 killing, along with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He waived about 15 years in custody credits to make the deal with prosecutors happen, Senior Deputy District Attorney Mark Birney said.
Smith kept 754 days of credits, leaving him with 10 more years in prison, but under 1988 laws he gets a day of credit for each day served if he behaves in prison.
Smith was previously convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole in the Oct. 24, 1988, stabbing death of 29-year-old Robert Haugen in Sunset Beach. He also 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.
But following the informant scandal that unfolded in 2011 during the prosecution of Scott Dekraai, the worst mass killer in the county’s history, Smith’s case came under the scrutiny of Dekraai’s attorney, Scott Sanders.
In the Dekraai case, allegations surfaced that 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 a mass murder at a Seal Beach hair salon, 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 plea 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. The case was reassigned to San Diego County Superior Court Judge Daniel B. Goldstein, who stripped the special circumstances allegation of torture from the case and prohibited evidence of alleged incriminating statements the defendant made while in custody.
Goldstein singled out Orange County Superior Court Judge Ebrahim Baytieh, who prosecuted the case against Smith, for making a “falsified statement” in an evidentiary hearing.
Wert’s attorney, Lolita Kirk, read a victim impact statement to Goldstein Monday, drawing a strong rebuke from Goldstein, who faulted Wert in part for the plea bargain.
Wert accused Smith of “planning his attack on myself, my family as well as other civilian witnesses in this case while he was in Nevada and within hours of my interview of him and even before he was charged with murder.”
Wert argued the evidence in the case against Smith was “strong and no informants were needed to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Wert said the defendant has “engaged in a lifetime of extremely violent crime involving sexual deviance and murder,” and claimed he “will not stop his lifetime of crime in one year or 10 years from now. He’s addicted to committing extreme violence like any diabolical deviant.”
Wert said Smith “is so diabolical he even admitted he went to Robert’s funeral and spoke to the congregation. It takes a truly demented psychopath to do that.”
Wert claimed Smith killed Haugen because the victim refused to sell Smith marijuana at Smith’s wife’s request.
Goldstein jibed Wert for not making the statement personally.
“It’s really rich he makes these comments,” Goldstein said.
“This is a tragic outcome based on the conduct of Mr. Wert,” Goldstein said. “The last thing I wanted to do in this case was take a plea for 12 years.”
The evidence in the case was “eviscerated” by the “unethical behavior” of Wert and others, Goldstein said.
Birney said the plea deal was “based on all the facts and circumstances … and evidence available” in the case.
“We believe it is a fair settlement under those circumstances,” Birney said.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer issued a statement Monday saying, “There are serious consequences when a prosecutor does not comply with his legal obligations to turn over evidence.”
“There is no doubt that Paul Gentile Smith committed the most heinous of murders when he tortured and killed his victim 37 years ago,” Spitzer said. “After a full and exhaustive hearing held by Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein, former Orange County prosecutor and current Orange County Superior Court Judge Ebrahim Baytieh was found, as a matter of law, to have failed to disclose exculpatory evidence regarding a jailhouse informant in this case.
“This is a defendant who should be spending the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, but instead he will spend a total of 21 years and seven months in prison for taking the life of another human being because of the misconduct committed by the prosecutorial team under the prior administration.
“This is why I have said for the last seven years since I became the district attorney that I will not tolerate the `win at all cost’ mentality of the prior administration, and that there are serious consequences when you cheat to win convictions.”
Goldstein said the entire Orange County Sheriff’s Department should have recused itself from the case once the allegation surfaced of Smith threatening Wert. He said he would have had to consider recusing the sheriff’s department from the case prior to the trial, which was scheduled to start next month.
“It definitely would have hurt Mr. Birney’s case,” Goldstein said.
Sanders told reporters after the hearing that there should be a full accounting of all of Baytieh’s cases. Sanders praised prosecutors for negotiating a plea deal for Smith.
“I think both sides thought it was a fair resolution,” Sanders said.
Of all the 61 cases affected by the informant scandal, Sanders said, “No cases are comparable to this one.”
He added, “There’s been no remorse or candid conversation about what took place” in the Smith case.
“You have to look at all of” Baytieh’s cases now, Sanders said. “We won’t have justice till we look at all of his cases. … It makes no sense this was a one-off.”
Baytieh’s attorney, Paul Meyer, declined comment.
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 an attorney, 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 evidentiary 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 ruling last year after the evidentiary hearing.