Deputy D.A. Cites Stress in Shoplift Case

Maintaining that he was under acute stress last July when he was stopped for shoplifting, a high-ranking deputy district attorney testified Friday that he never intended to leave a Glendale department store without paying for perfume, socks and four ties he is accused of stealing.

“It was never my intent to remove property and take it anywhere outside of that store without paying for it, or to conceal it or hide it from anybody,” Jeffrey C. Jonas told a Glendale Municipal Court jury. “. . . I have no doubt about that at all.”

During two days of testimony, Jonas, 46, who is charged with misdemeanor petty theft of goods worth $89.50, portrayed himself as a man beset by professional and personal pressures that peaked a week before the July 26 incident at the Broadway store in the Glendale Galleria.

Among these pressures, he testified, were health problems involving two of his four children, his leadership role in the Church of Latter-day Saints, civic responsibilities for the city of Burbank and campaign work as chief spokesman for the Committee to Defeat (former Chief Justice) Rose Bird.

In addition, Jonas said, he had received death threats in connection with a murder case he was prosecuting and early last year had caught a prowler in his backyard.

“For the first time in my life I questioned whether I should be doing what I was doing--prosecuting cases,” said Jonas, a 17-year veteran of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

The week before he was arrested, Jonas said, he found himself agreeing to take on two additional homicide cases, even though his superiors had criticized him for spending too little time on his administrative duties.

As a head deputy in the downtown Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building, Jonas supervises 35 felony trial lawyers. Last September, he was suspended for 30 days, with a $6,000 loss in pay, based on a confession he gave store authorities. No further disciplinary action was taken.

Jonas testified that he went to the store on impulse after suddenly remembering he needed to pick up trousers that were being altered. He recalls selecting the perfume for his wife and “touching and turning” the ties but does not remember putting the ties or socks in a store bag, he said.

While waiting in line at a cash register, he said, “I just lost it. . . . I got agitated. I got mad.” He added: “No. 1, I was disoriented. No. 2, I was distraught.”

During his testimony, Jonas took issue with several statements attributed to him by a store security guard, Marilyn Cisneros. The guard testified Thursday that she followed Jonas out of the store after watching him take four ties.

When she tapped him on the shoulder and told him she would have to handcuff him, she testified that Jonas told her: “Honey, before you do that, I have my badge in my back pocket.”

But under questioning by his lawyer, Warren L. Ettinger, Jonas said he had been “very, very careful” not to “use my position or my badge to get a special favor.”

During cross-examination, however, Deputy Atty. Gen. Richard B. Cullather questioned how Jonas could be certain on this point while so many other details of what happened in the store remain vague. The attorney general’s office is prosecuting the case to avoid any conflict of interest.

The trial, in its fourth day Friday, resumes Monday when Jonas’ psychiatrist is expected to testify. The case is expected to go to the jury by midweek.