D.A.’s Office to Prosecute Director in Theft, Forgery, Bad-Check Cases

A Van Nuys judge on Monday decided the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office will prosecute a producer-director who alleged a conflict of interest involving a deputy district attorney.

Dirk Wayne Summers faces 22 charges in five cases. They include grand theft, fraudulent use of credit cards, passing bad checks and forgery.

One of the charges against him alleges he used someone’s credit card in 1986 to charter a jet.

Summers’ attorney, James H. Barnes, wanted the district attorney’s office to bow out of the prosecution and let the California attorney general’s office handle it.

Summers alleged that Michael E. Consiglio, the deputy district attorney who filed four of the five cases against him, had a conflict of interest.

Superior Court Judge Richard G. Kolostian ordered that Summers, 46, of Sherman Oaks, be prosecuted by a deputy district attorney unacquainted with Consiglio. That appointment is to be made Friday.

Consiglio has been on a paid administrative leave from the Van Nuys office since July 24 while under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert Garcetti.

Consiglio had been acquainted with an investor in the ZZZZ Best carpet-cleaning company, which Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said last summer is under investigation for allegedly being part of a money-laundering conspiracy linked to organized crime.

Barnes alleged that Consiglio, who was friendly with ZZZZ Best investor Maurice Rind, had been overzealous in seeking charges against Summers.

Former Partners

Rind, a former San Fernando Valley stockbroker, and Summers were business partners in 1984, Barnes said. After the partnership soured, Summers testified in 1985 against Rind in a New York Securities and Exchange Commission case, Barnes said.

Another of the five cases against Summers in Van Nuys involves a stretch limousine, valued at more than $25,000, which Summers and Rind owned when they were business partners. A dispute arose over the ownership, and a charge of grand theft auto filed against Summers by Consiglio.

Consiglio denied Monday that he knew Rind before he filed the charge. He said that Rind was introduced to him by the police as a victim in the limousine case.

“I had never seen the man before in my life,” said Consiglio, who admitted he became friends with Rind after the case was filed. He declined to say whether their friendship involved ZZZZ Best.

Consiglio also denied he manipulated anyone to prosecute the cases against Summers. He said a separate detective worked each of the cases. He said it was not unusual for the same prosecutor to file subsequent cases against the same defendant.

Consiglio’s boss in Van Nuys, Deputy Dist. Atty. David R. Disco, also denied that Consiglio had handled the cases improperly. He said that if the cases were faulty and lacked the necessary evidence for prosecution, they would have been dismissed earlier in preliminary hearings.

A detective with the Police Department’s Organized Crime Task Force confirmed that he is looking into ZZZZ Best and that Consiglio “is part of the investigation.”

Garcetti said he did not know how long Consiglio would be on leave. “They view him as a suspect, and until that is revolved, he can’t perform his duties,” Garcetti said.