Aides Pressed Him to Prosecute : Reiner Wanted to Drop Fiedler Case 4 Weeks Ago

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said he wanted to drop prosecution of Rep. Bobbi Fiedler four weeks ago, as soon as he learned that the county grand jury had disregarded his recommendation not to indict her. But he said he decided to allow the case to go ahead anyway and left for a European vacation.

Reiner, who finally decided to drop the case this week, said in an interview Thursday that he was heeding the advice of career prosecutors, including his two chief aides, who argued that they were duty-bound to press the election law violation case against Fiedler, a candidate in the Republican U. S. Senate primary, rather than override the county grand jury.

The grand jury had acted as an independent agency, or, as one of the prosecutors, Assistant Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay, put it, “the conscience of the community.”

Reiner said that his staff’s position was that “unless you have some nutty runaway grand jury” the district attorney’s office “always will proceed with a grand jury indictment (even though) we may professionally disagree that there should be an indictment.”

In this case, the panel could not be deemed a “runaway,” Reiner said, although it indicted Fiedler against the recommendation of prosecutors. The district attorney’s office had asked only for the indictment of Fiedler’s campaign manager, Paul Clarke, on charges of offering a $100,000 campaign contribution to lure state Sen. Ed Davis out of the primary.

Reiner and the other prosecutors have said they believed there was sufficient evidence for grand jurors to develop the necessary strong suspicion that both Feidler and Clarke were guilty. Thus, from the grand jury’s point of view, the indictment was warranted. However, the prosecutors added, there was not enough evidence to prove Fiedler’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard required at a trial.

Reiner said he agreed to press forward with the case--at least through pretrial maneuverings--and told his staff to keep investigating it while he went to Europe on a three-week vacation that was a surprise gift to him from his wife on his 50th birthday.

When he returned late last week, the investigation had concluded without any breakthroughs.

Urged to Continue

Reiner said his staff, in meetings Tuesday, still urged him to continue with the prosecution, but he decided to move to drop it.

The next morning, four prosecutors who had been advising him met with him again in what Reiner described as a last-ditch effort to persuade him to change his mind just before Reiner announced his decision at a press conference.

At that Wednesday meeting, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert I. Garcetti, who during Reiner’s absence had repeatedly told reporters that the office intended to continue the prosecution, said his boss put him on the spot.

Garcetti gave this account of the exchange:

“It was your recommendation to me early on that we ask the grand jury not to return an indictment on Fiedler,” he quoted Reiner as saying.

“I also have read (newspaper accounts) where you have indicated at least as of a week and a half ago that you would willingly prosecute the case in a vigorous fashion, but if the case was presented to you today that you would not file the case,” Reiner continued.

“If the case was presented to you right now, based on the information we have, would you file the case?”

“I said, ‘No, I would not file the case,’ ” Garcetti recalled.

Asked Everyone Else

Reiner then asked everyone else present: “If this case was presented to you right now against Fiedler would you file? “Everyone else said the same thing--’no,’ ” Garcetti said.

“Then what in the world are we doing going forward with the case?” responded Reiner.

The district attorney’s office files most criminal cases itself, without using a grand jury. Its usual standard is higher than that of a grand jury. Prosecutors are supposed to believe that the case can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The meeting, which Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven A. Sowders described as a “factual discussion” rather than a confrontational session, was also attended by Livesay and Deputy Dist. Atty. Candace Beason.

Garcetti said that after listening to Reiner all four did not necessarily agree with their boss’s decision but they accepted it.

Reiner’s Recommendation

At the press conference, Reiner announced he would recommend that a Superior Court judge dismiss Fiedler’s indictment at a hearing scheduled next Wednesday, at which the defense will also urge dismissal on the ground that the grand jury did not have sufficient valid evidence to indict the congresswoman from Northridge.

The timing of Reiner’s try to abort the Fiedler prosecution has raised criticism and questions among defense attorneys and in the corridors of the district attorney’s office itself.

“I think Ira Reiner is right that you don’t prosecute a case you don’t believe in,” said Fiedler’s attorney, Harland Braun. “But I think he should have been right three weeks ago. . . This (delay) allowed her (Fiedler) to twist in the wind several weeks waiting for him to come back. What if someone mistakenly indicted Ira Reiner and then went incommunicado for three weeks. How would he feel?”

But Reiner, Garcetti and Sowders countered that Reiner’s absence did not cause any delays. They noted that the hearing before Superior Court Judge Robert Altman was not scheduled to take place until after Reiner’s return.

Looking for Evidence

Also, the additional investigation did not conclude until late last week, prosecutors said. In it, Garcetti said, two staff members interviewed a handful of people in Los Angeles and Washington with whom Fiedler had discussed her campaign. They were looking for evidence that could demonstrate criminal intent that they apparently felt was missing from secret tape recordings of conversations with Fiedler made by Davis’ campaign manager at prosecutors’ behest.

Garcetti said he had pressed strongly for the additional investigation because “I did believe there were other individuals . . . Fiedler talked to. . . . I felt it was just a matter of ferreting them out . . . maybe that was just a pie-in-the-sky type hope.”

Investigators also tape recorded Fiedler’s public statements on the case seeking contradictions and new leads--in at least one instance, mingling among news reporters at a press conference to record her remarks.

Reiner was due to return from his vacation in a couple days when the investigation concluded, Garcetti said. He said he had not talked with Reiner once during the district attorney’s vacation and decided to wait to meet with him personally rather to discuss the case by phone from Europe.

Braun was critical of this lack of contact. “All I can tell you is when I go Europe on vacation, I call into my office twice a day.”