Secret logs on jail informants are ‘distressing,’ Orange County D.A.’s office says

The defense attorney for convicted murderer Daniel Patrick Wozniak peppered two Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials with questions Tuesday about secret records kept on the department’s jailhouse informant program and why the entries were only then coming to light, months after his client was convicted.

Unknown to the Sheriff’s Department’s command staff, deputies assigned to handle jail informants kept a log of their interactions with inmates between 2008 and 2013, according to testimony from a sheriff’s sergeant and a lieutenant.

The fact that the log was kept hidden despite prosecutors and defendants’ asking for such information was “distressing,” the Orange County district attorney’s office said in a statement released hours after Tuesday’s hearing.

“The OCDA expects police officers to tell the truth and pursue justice,” the statement said.

Public defender Scott Sanders has been seeking the records in his bid to persuade an Orange County Superior Court judge not to impose the death sentence on Wozniak.

Jurors last year found Wozniak, 31, of Costa Mesa guilty of killing two Orange Coast College students in 2010 and then dismembering one of them in a bizarre cover-up attempt.

In January, the jury recommended that Wozniak be put to death. Superior Court Judge John Conley is scheduled to issue the official sentence this month.

Since the end of the trial, however, new information has surfaced about Wozniak and a jailhouse informant who spoke with him.

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

The case is the most recent front in a fight Sanders has waged with the district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department alleging that they routinely fail to turn over evidence — particularly related to jail informants — that defendants are entitled to see.

On Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Department gave Sanders about 80 pages of log entries related to Wozniak’s case.

The judge also allowed Sanders to interrogate sheriff’s officials about the records and how they were discovered.

Under a barrage of questions, sheriff’s Sgt. Kirsten Monteleone testified that she had no idea that deputies were keeping a daily record until one of them showed it to her in recent weeks.

“You were stunned,” Sanders said.

“I was surprised,” she replied.

Monteleone and Cmdr. Adam Powell testified that they were part of a team assigned to find any private notes or records that deputies kept that higher-level officials did not know of.

The two said they were assigned the task in February after another deputy, Robert Szewczyk, revealed in a different murder case that he had kept four years worth of his own notes.

An Orange County judge ultimately ruled that the defendant in that case deserved a new trial because prosecutors had failed to disclose that a key witness was a regular informant.

After the revelation of Szewczyk’s notes, Sanders filed a subpoena asking for any similar records.

Powell testified that he and Monteleone sent a department-wide memo asking deputies for any notes they may have kept. They also emailed about 300 past and present deputies asking if they had any more information that needed to be revealed, Powell said.

He said they contacted two deputies named in Sanders’ subpoena: Bill Grover and Ben Garcia.

Monteleone testified that when she showed Szewczyk’s notes to Garcia, he revealed the log that had been kept for years by multiple deputies.

NEWSLETTER: Get essential California headlines delivered daily >>

Prosecutors also pressed the two Sheriff’s Department members about the newly surfaced notes.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eric Scarbrough repeatedly asked Monteleone whether she questioned Garcia over not disclosing the log earlier, when he was asked for notes kept on specific inmate informants.

“He didn’t feel that they were considered notes,” Monteleone replied.

Prosecutors, too, were kept in the dark until Tuesday, according to the statement issued by the district attorney’s office.

“The OCDA finds it distressing that these notes would be withheld from the OCDA, the court and the public until this hearing,” the statement said. “The OCDA has been assured by Sheriff Sandra Hutchens that she will take appropriate internal actions to address this issue.”

A Sheriff’s Department spokesman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

For more news in Orange County, follow @JeremiahDobruck.

ALSO

California voters getting chance to fully legalize marijuana

Help wanted: Volunteers needed to gather L.A. coyotes’ scat

Seven Muslim women sue Laguna Beach cafe for discrimination after they were ordered to leave