Judge Scores Doctor Who Didn’t Show

A judge Friday berated a physician who had failed to appear to testify in an Orange County murder case, calling his conduct “ridiculous,” but decided not to cite him for contempt of court.

Superior Court Judge James L. Smith had issued a bench warrant for Dr. David Dantes’ arrest on June 2, after defendant Michael Wesley Reding’s attorney told the court Dantes refused to testify unless he was paid a $500 fee as an expert witness.

At the conclusion of Friday’s hearing, Smith said there was “reasonable doubt” that Dantes had ever been legally served with a subpoena, but the judge said he had no doubt that the doctor knew the defense wanted his testimony.

“Your reputation among law enforcement people is as a person who goes to great lengths to avoid subpoenas,” the judge said at Friday’s hearing. “I don’t expect you to lose any sleep over it, but you have an image problem, doctor.”

Dantes finally did testify on June 5. It was then that Smith set the Friday date for a contempt hearing for Dantes’ failure to show the first time.

Reding, 27, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Pamela Trueblood of Fullerton and her three children in an auto crash on Oct. 23, 1984. Dantes, who is from Santa Monica, was the emergency room physician who attended to Reding at St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Fullerton on the night of the crash.

Reding’s attorney, Heidi Mueller, said she did not want Dantes as an expert witness but only to tell the court what he observed and heard Reding say that night.

Dantes claimed at Friday’s hearing that he had never been served with a subpoena to appear on June 2. But he had spoken with Mueller by telephone and was trying to make arrangements to appear when he learned about the bench warrant for his arrest, he told the judge.

Dantes also vehemently denied that he had insisted on a $500 fee. But when Mueller cross-examined him at Friday’s hearing, Dantes qualified that denial.

At first he said he mentioned the $500 fee to her only in connection with his being called as an expert witness. But under Mueller’s questioning, he said he told her his customary fee was $500 if he was an expert witness or a voluntary witness, meaning a witness who had not been subpoenaed.

Testimony at Friday’s hearing dealt with whether Mueller’s process server had successfully served a subpoena on Dantes at St. Jude on May 22.

The process server, Jerry Mulligan, testified that he laid the papers on a reception desk in the emergency room a few steps from Dantes, with hospital security on his heels, and announced to the doctor that he had been served. But Dantes brought in several hospital employees who testified that they did not believe Dantes was even present when Mulligan laid the papers on the desk.

One nurse said she went to Dantes as he was attending patients and told him that Mulligan claimed to have a message from Heidi Mueller. Dantes and the nurse both testified that Dantes told her he was too busy to see Mulligan.

“The issue is not whether you were served, doctor, but whether . . . you were successful in avoiding service,” Smith said. “I cannot understand why someone would try to avoid a subpoena in a criminal trial. I understand that you might have to miss work, but we have a lot of jurors who lose money because they have to come to court, too. That’s the dues we have to pay as American citizens.”

Dantes left the courtroom grim-faced and refused to talk about the judge’s chastisement.

The Reding case is expected to reach the jury early next week.