Favoritism Denied in Drug Case Involving Police Officer’s Son

Police, citing what they termed “process mistakes” and “a communications breakdown,” have acknowledged that for three months they did not serve a felony arrest warrant that named the son of a Torrance police captain.

Police officials denied any favoritism.

Nonetheless, Capt. James Weyant acknowledges that when his son Joel, 23, was arrested Aug. 15 on suspicion of cocaine possession, he asked if it were possible for him to be released without having to post bail. The son was released, pending further investigation, a procedure that police acknowledge is infrequent but permissible.

Department officials also acknowledge that when they first became aware that an arrest warrant had been issued at the request of the district attorney’s office, they took unusual steps to keep it from being enforced over Thanksgiving.

Capt. Weyant and other police officials insist that the younger Weyant received no special treatment because he is the son of a ranking police officer.

“Hey, we did the right thing all the way through,” said Capt. Jim R. Popp, who said the department once arrested the son of a police chief. Weyant “is in court. There is no cover-up. I feel badly for Jim (Weyant) but not enough to change the system for him.”

The younger Weyant, who never was arrested on the warrant and voluntarily came to court Dec. 5, is due back Friday for arraignment.

Nevertheless, officials, including Police Chief Donald Nash, concede that the incident reveals errors in communication between the district attorney’s office and the Police Department and a less-than-perfect system in the department for handling warrants.

The younger Weyant’s arrest report gives this account:

On Aug. 15, Torrance officers Tom Dorsey and Patrick Shortall, on the lookout for burglars who had hit some clothing stores, were patrolling near a shopping center parking structure at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and Newton Street in South Torrance.

They noticed a shirtless man, identified as Joel Weyant, sitting in a white Toyota pickup truck. The officers stopped the truck as it began driving away, noticed blood in Weyant’s nostrils and a mirror-compact with a credit card sticking out on the seat of the cab.

Reasoning that the compact and credit card might have been used to make lines of cocaine for inhaling, the officers opened the compact and discovered a line of white crystalline powder and a small pile of the powder nearby.

Later searches revealed packets of powder in Weyant’s underpants, between his buttocks and under the back seat of the patrol car in which he had been placed on the way to the jail. (The back seat of the car had been examined before the arrest, police said.)

Detective Greg Satterfield, who is the liaison with the district attorney’s office for narcotics cases made by patrol officers, was on duty at the time. Satterfield said his supervisor told him that Weyant, now in charge of traffic and emergency services but then patrol commander, had been informed of the arrest and “would like a telephone call at home.”

During the telephone call, Weyant, according to Satterfield, “explains up front that he didn’t want anything done out of the ordinary but if something could be done to get his son out of jail without having to post bail, he would appreciate it.”

In an interview, Weyant said, “When I first heard of the arrest, I thought in no way am I going to jeopardize myself or my son, which is what it would come down to. My dad (formerly a Los Angeles policeman) was the same way. I got popped for curfew and alcohol when I was under 21. . . .

“I got the phone call and say, ‘Handle it.’ I lay back down and think I got to let the kid know I care. . . . In the morning, I called the narcotics investigator and asked him what the alternatives are. When the person lives here locally and it is a first offense and the amount of cocaine (is small), they would release him pending analysis, pending filing of the case. He was released.”

Satterfield said he followed the routine procedure when no immediate test has been performed and released the younger Weyant “pending the results of the lab.” In such a release, no bail is required. Popp said similar releases have occurred in 17 out of 300 Torrance narcotics cases last year.

The lab report came back showing that the powder was cocaine, and Assistant Dist. Atty. Fred Horn filed a cocaine possession charge Aug. 28.

Satterfield said he had “the impression” that the district attorney’s office would write a letter to Weyant advising him when to appear in court for arraignment and that an arrest warrant would not be issued. A warrant would have required an initial court appearance and possibly the posting of bail.

‘Communications Breakdown’

Such letters are routinely issued in cases where the suspect has been released pending further investigation, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Morrell, who supervises Municipal Court activities of the district attorney’s Torrance office. Satterfield labeled the district attorney’s office’s failure to notify police that a letter had not been issued a “communications breakdown.”

Horn, whose job is trying, not filing cases, said he was not familiar with the procedure of issuing a letter rather than a warrant when a defendant has been released pending further investigation.

“I never heard of it,” he said. “My function was a trial lawyer. When they are busy, I do a little filing for them.”

He said he did not recall the case. “It was not brought to my attention who this kid was. I’m sure I would have remembered. I’m a little upset I wasn’t told.”

Satterfield said his job is limited to making sure the lab test and other paper work is submitted to the district attorney’s office.

‘No Further Contact’

“Once I do that, I have no further contact. When I submit all my paper work for the issuance of a warrant, I receive no further contact that a warrant has in fact been issued,” he said.

The warrant was issued Aug. 29. On Sept. 2, it was entered into the countywide computer system that keeps track of warrants and a 3-by-5-inch card with information about the warrant was printed out and sent over to the office of Torrance Police Detective Joseph Martin, whose duties include serving warrants.

Martin said he never noticed it.

“We have got a stack of warrants here that we have never even been able to look at--probably a good four to six inches thick,” Martin said. “If we get an opportunity, we try to separate the felonies from the misdemeanors and separate out the more serious (felonies) but that doesn’t always happen.

“The information card was in that stack of new warrants that I had that I had not gotten the opportunity to alphabetize. I never did notice the name.”

No Arraignment Date

The case was in limbo. No arraignment date was set because Weyant had not been picked up on the warrant. Satterfield had signed off on it. The warrant detail was oblivious.

The only one who appeared to be concerned was Capt. Weyant.

He asked Satterfield--probably in October, they said, but the exact date is uncertain--to find out what was happening.

“I contacted the district attorney’s office and talked to the clerk and was told there had not been an arraignment date set and I relayed that information to Capt. Weyant and felt the system is just bogged down,” Satterfield said.

Second Inquiry

“Capt. Weyant called about a month later and I probed into it a little bit further and the district attorney’s office said there had been no arraignment set because there is a warrant and nobody has been taken into custody.”

Capt. Weyant’s second inquiry occurred just before Thanksgiving.

“I didn’t know it had gone to warrant,” Capt. Weyant said. “Shortly before Thanksgiving, I met the narcotics commander in the parking lot and said, ‘Check into this case. I know the kid should be hearing something.’ That afternoon Satterfield comes to my office and a little sheepishly he told me that there was an arrest warrant. I was little upset with him and said, ‘Why didn’t he get a letter?’ He didn’t have an answer for that.”

When police found out about the warrant, Popp issued the unusual instructions to make sure the warrant was not served until court was open after the holiday. Otherwise, any police officer in the state who stopped Weyant for, say, a traffic violation would have learned of the warrant and arrested him, Popp said.

Torrance police records officials had to enter and re-enter a hold on the warrant in the countywide computer system every two hours between Nov. 26 and Nov. 28. If they hadn’t, the system would have generated automatic warnings questioning the status of the warrant, Popp said.

Unaware of Details

In a brief interview, Joel Weyant said he was unaware of the unusual handling of his case.

“I don’t know anything about that. All I know is I was waiting for them to contact me and they did and I’m going in,” he said.

His father said the questions in the case had been raised by a “disgruntled employee” whom he declined to name. He said the issue, as well as what he called his son’s cocaine problem, is a source of anguish.

“My Dad was LAPD. His brothers were all cops or firemen. I’ve been with the Torrance Police Department for 25 years. I’ve never had a sick day off. I never had a blemish on my record. I am an absolutely above-board police person,” Weyant said.

“I say this to add credibility but also to explain the impact of this problem I am having with my son.

“As far as special treatment, if someone whose son had been arrested and came before me with the same circumstances and I know him, I would do it in a minute. It was not because he is a cop’s son. There is nothing out of line.”