Judge Will Ask Probe of Sheriff Unit : Youngblood Says He Fears Being ‘Set Up’ Because of Lawsuit

Saying he fears that he may be framed by the Sheriff’s Department, Orange County Municipal Judge Bobby D. Youngblood Tuesday announced that he will ask federal and state authorities to investigate Sheriff Brad Gates’ criminal intelligence unit.

Gates could not be reached for comment, but in the past he has declined comment on his running feud with Youngblood on the grounds that his office has a continuing investigation of Youngblood.

Youngblood, private investigator George Patrick Bland and Rancho Santiago College instructor George Wright said through their attorney at a press conference Tuesday that they fear they may be “set up” by sheriff’s investigators because of their pending $10-million civil rights lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department.

Latest Round in Lawsuit

The department is determined “to set me up any way possible,” Youngblood told reporters at the county Hall of Administration.

Asked why he has decided to seek investigations at this time by the state and federal attorneys general, Youngblood said, “How long are we supposed to wait? Until we’re on the prison steps?”

Youngblood’s accusations are the latest round in his lawsuit, which was filed in December, 1983, in Los Angeles federal court, alleging that Gates illegally spied on and attempted to discredit Youngblood, Bland and Wright for political reasons. Youngblood has long accused the Sheriff’s Department of improprieties at the County Jail. Wright and Bland were unsuccessful candidates for sheriff in 1978 and 1982, respectively.

In support of their accusations, Youngblood, Bland and Wright cited last Friday’s misdemeanor arraignment of Preston Guillory, a private investigator who works for them. Guillory has a separate federal lawsuit pending against Gates, in which he alleges that the sheriff discriminates in granting concealed-weapons permits only to friends.

Nine misdemeanor counts filed in North Municipal Court allege that last October Guillory illegally posed as a police officer, displayed a peace officer’s badge, entered a private residence without permission and carried a concealed weapon.

Investigator Denies Charges

Guillory denies the charges, which stem from his serving a subpoena on Richard Wilder, also known as Richard Gross, in connection with the Youngblood-Gates lawsuit. Guillory maintains that he was accompanied by an Anaheim police officer when he served the subpoena and that he carried a handgun in an exposed holster, which he is licensed to do.

Youngblood’s attorney, Michael Cisarik, said the charges against Guillory are spurious and designed to neutralize the investigator in Guillory’s own lawsuit as well as his work in Youngblood’s lawsuit.

Cisarik said that Undersheriff Raul Ramos and Sheriff’s Sgt. Randy Blair have refused in depositions to discuss the sheriff’s intelligence unit, known as the Orange County Criminal Activities Section.

But at Tuesday’s press conference, Cisarik produced two sworn declarations by Youngblood’s estranged wife, Cheryl Youngblood, in which she alleged that a sheriff’s investigator told her that “Gates had given him specific orders to nail Bobby D. Youngblood and George Patrick Bland any way he could and to seek out (her) assistance in that endeavor.”