Private detective pleads no contest in witness bribery

A private investigator who has worked for such high-profile criminal defendants as Michael Jackson and Winona Ryder pleaded no contest Tuesday to conspiracy to obstruct justice and bribery in connection with the payoff of an alleged rape victim.

Bradley G. Miller entered the plea to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and three counts of bribing a witness, said Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. The plea came during a pretrial hearing. Miller faces up to five years in prison, prosecutors said.

The charges stem from Miller’s work for Alex Izquierdo, who was charged with multiple counts of rape, torture, false imprisonment and other crimes for allegedly abusing his live-in girlfriend. Izquierdo pleaded guilty to sodomy and criminal threats in February 2009 and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Miller and two other men are accused of conspiring in 2005 to take the victim to Las Vegas on the day she was to testify against Izquierdo.

“Mr. Miller wants to put this behind him,” said his attorney, Mark Werksman. “This will allow him to get on with his life.”

Camilo Valentin and George Izquierdo, the defendant’s father, were charged along with Miller in the bribery case, prosecutors said.

In a 2007 preliminary hearing in which a judge found sufficient evidence for the three to stand trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Frank Tavelman presented records detailing an elaborate scheme to spirit the woman away and buy her silence.

The woman told district attorney’s investigators that Valentin met her before the trial and told her that George Izquierdo would take care of her financially if she did not testify against his son.

Prosecutors allege that on the morning the woman was to testify at the trial, Valentin drove her to Las Vegas.--

richard.winton@latimes.com