Deputy D.A. Charged in Theft ‘Blacked Out’

Defense witnesses in the petty theft trial of Deputy Dist. Atty. Wayne Mayer testified Thursday that the prosecutor, under stress from the controversial Sagon Penn retrial, may have stolen some tools out of a pickup truck while in an alcohol-related blackout.

Part of the stress in the Penn retrial came from the fact that Mayer had “doubts” about Police Agent Donovan Jacobs, a key prosecution witness who has been shot and wounded by Penn, a psychiatrist testified.

The 41-year-old Mayer was suspended without pay after the state attorney general filed misdemeanor theft charges against him in July, after verdicts for acquittal in the Penn case. The prosecutor is accused of stealing a saw and a drill from a pickup truck parked at De Anza Cove on June 14.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Mayer spoke slowly and hesitantly about the stress he experienced in the Penn case and about his drinking problem. He said he began heavily in 1978 or 1979 to unwind from work pressures and forget particularly brutal murder and child abuse cases he handled.

Mayer said the Penn retrial left him with a “terrible feeling of helplessness or loss or both. We were in a position in the second trial I believe we shouldn’t have been in.”

“Mr. Penn had been acquitted of first- and second-degree murder (in the first trial), and I believed then and believe now that was a mistake,” he said.

Penn shot and wounded Jacobs and killed Police Agent Thomas Riggs after a scuffle in March, 1985. Penn was acquitted of murder and attempted murder charges last year during his first trial, which was heavily reported in the media.

When asked whether his drinking pattern changed during the second Penn case, Mayer replied, “I was drinking more and more in the late evenings, and I started drinking on the weekends. I usually had one drink, sometimes two, when I got home from work, but had never drank during the day.”

H. Douglas Englehorn, Mayer’s psychiatrist since mid-June, testified that the prosecutor was “loaded with conflict” about the Penn retrial, in part because Mayer’s wife, Gayle, was a police officer and a good friend of Jacobs’. He said Mayer’s wife spent time with Jacobs as he recovered from his gunshot wounds in the hospital.

The psychiatrist also said Mayer had “doubts” about Jacobs, who was accused of goading Penn into the confrontation by using racial epithets. Penn is black and Jacobs is white.

Asked later about his remark, the psychiatrist declined to elaborate.

“Let’s just say that he had some doubts about Donovan Jacobs,” Englehorn said in a telephone interview Thursday evening.

Apparently, Mayer didn’t tell his fellow prosecutor in the case about his feelings. Asked late Thursday whether Mayer ever said anything about the doubts, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Carpenter said, “No.”

Mayer experienced additional emotional pressure because his wife also knew Riggs and Riggs’ father, who taught in the Police Academy, according to defense testimony. Mayer and his wife attended Riggs’ funeral.

Englehorn also told jurors that Mayer had a history of alcoholic blackouts since he was 19, and that the prosecutor used alcohol like a sedative to go to sleep. He said the pressures of the Penn trial could have contributed to an alcoholic blackout by Mayer on the day of the alleged theft.

Mayer said Thursday that he had been drinking heavily June 14--a Sunday. He testified that he didn’t remember taking the tools, leaving De Anza Cove or driving home.

“I don’t remember anything after I poured my last glass of bourbon,” Mayer said.

Police went to Mayer’s home that day after a Yuma woman saw someone take the tools and wrote down a license plate number. Police were unable to find the stolen items.

But the next morning, Mayer testified, he found a saw that wasn’t his in the garage.

In addition, Mayer said he found a drill on the floor of his seldom-used dining room. The prosecutor said he put both tools in an athletic bag in his trunk and took them to the courthouse, where he stored them in a locker.

“I was concerned about the impact it might have on the Penn deliberations . . . and my position with the (district attorney’s) office,” Mayer said.

“I considered how I was going to return the tools with the least amount of publicity.”

Mayer said he eventually agreed to turn them over to an investigator, who then delivered them to the attorney general’s office.

Carpenter also took the stand Thursday and told the jury that the Penn trial was the most pressure-packed he has experienced in 15 years with the district attorney’s office. He also said Mayer was his choice to take over the lead in the case if the jury had deadlocked a second time on key charges and the district attorney decided to pursue a third trial.

Two other deputy district attorneys, Bob Hammes and Jay Coulter, testified about the stress suffered from heavy caseloads. Hammes said he noticed an alcohol odor from Mayer’s body after they ran together.

Final arguments are scheduled for this morning.