Hike in Bail Sought for Gang-Rape Defendant

Prosecutors asked Monday that bail be increased for an Orange County assistant sheriff’s son who is on trial with two friends for allegedly raping an unconscious girl.

Gregory Scott Haidl, 18, has had three run-ins with law enforcement since his arrest in the 2002 case, in which he and two friends are accused of videotaping themselves raping a 16-year-old during a Fourth of July party.

His behavior since then has been so reckless, prosecutors contend, that they worry Haidl might stop coming to court or even flee.

“Haidl has displayed a total disregard for the law, for authority, and for the property and rights of others in pursuit of his own enjoyment,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Hess wrote in a nine-page brief filed Monday. “Given this pattern of behavior, it would be foolish to repose any trust in defendant to follow the laws requiring him to make all further appearances.”

Haidl is free on $100,000 bail. In the motion, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Hess did not specify an amount he believed would be appropriate but said that given the wealth of Haidl’s father, the current amount was not enough.

Haidl’s lead attorney, Joseph G. Cavallo, said that while he takes the prosecutor’s request for a bail hike seriously, he believes it is also a publicity stunt.

“With this motion, prosecutors are trying to send a message to Greg to cut it out,” Cavallo said. “But this is the wrong way to do it.”

Despite footing the bill for the bail, Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl appears to have little control over his son, Hess wrote.

“While Haidl’s posted bail amount ($100,000) might seem like a substantial sum in the abstract,” the brief reads, “it is a minor amount for a family reportedly worth nearly $100 million.”

The paperwork likened Haidl to Andrew Luster, the Ventura County man convicted in January 2003 of raping unconscious women and videotaping the encounters. During his trial, Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, fled to Mexico and was later apprehended by a bounty hunter.

In his brief, the prosecutor suggested the defendant is behaving recklessly because he believes he will be killed in prison if he is convicted -- an opinion that Haidl’s father expressed in a recent Times interview.

Haidl is charged along with Kyle Joseph Nachreiner and Keith James Spann, both 19, with raping an unconscious girl in the Corona del Mar home of the assistant sheriff. The elder Haidl was not home at the time.

Each defendant faces up to 55 years in prison if convicted on all 24 counts. Their trial started May 3.

Haidl’s most recent brush with the law happened Thursday, when sheriff’s deputies detained him and two other young men in Dana Point. The three were skateboarding near a condo complex where, sheriff’s deputies say, they removed a handrail from a private stairway and used a second railing as a ramp.

The three were released with a warning when the homeowners association declined to press charges.

In March, Haidl and 12 others were cited for trespassing at a boarded-up restaurant in Laguna Niguel. The property owner decided not to prosecute, and no charges were filed.

In October, a sheriff’s deputy allegedly saw Haidl and two friends skateboarding at a closed business park in San Clemente. When he searched their car, he said, he found a small bag of marijuana near Haidl’s keys and cigarettes. One of the other teens allegedly said the marijuana was his, but none of them was cited.

Hess also accused Haidl of trying to intimidate witnesses in the rape case.

The defendants made “threatening facial gestures” toward a nurse who testified during the preliminary hearing, the prosecutor contends. After testifying, the brief added, the nurse returned to her car and found it had been keyed.

Investigators for Haidl’s defense team have also behaved improperly, the prosecutor wrote. After the girl transferred to another high school for her senior year under an assumed name, he said, an investigator told her new friends about the rape case and divulged her real name.

On April 28, the prosecutor alleges, another investigator trespassed onto the girl’s property and rummaged through the trash. Her brother saw someone in a sideyard who resembled a man who had been following his sister to and from the courthouse and his mother to and from work in February.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies traced the suspect’s car to a Rialto police officer, who told them that while off duty he worked for the Haidl defense team. But he denied being at the accuser’s house that day, the prosecutor wrote.

Cavallo said Monday that none of his investigators had trespassed at the Rancho Cucamonga house or harassed anyone.

Judge Francisco P. Briseno will hear arguments Wednesday regarding the bail increase but will not rule until next week. If Haidl were to flee, his father would forfeit 10% of the bail amount -- the standard retainer for a bond.

The rape trial continued Monday in Briseno’s courtroom, with the conclusion of testimony by a nurse who examined the accuser three days after the incident and the start of testimony by the Newport Beach police detective who investigated the case.

Although jurors had already seen the 21 minutes of footage purported to show the rape, they saw for the first time Monday the entire hourlong video that was turned over to police. Before the encounter between the defendants and the girl, the video shows Nachreiner gulping a mixed vodka drink before jumping from a balcony, Haidl skateboarding and a school project: a fake news show on the novel “Of Mice and Men.”