Expanded Probe Into Lawyer Is Sought

In an unusual action, a legislative committee investigating allegations that San Diego attorney Alex Landon played a role in a 1972 prison escape has recommended that the California attorney general’s office and the State Bar conduct their own inquiry into the episode.

Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), in a prepared statement released Friday, said “the conclusion seems inescapable that further investigation” is warranted into charges that Landon smuggled hacksaw blades into the Chino state prison to help an inmate escape.

“For the benefit of all, the issue needs to be resolved once and for all in a fair and equitable manner after a thorough reinvestigation, since it involves a prison break plus the death of one corrections officer and the serious wounding of another, who was left for dead,” said Presley, chairman of the Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations.

‘Unanswered Questions’

Presley said the committee’s review of state Department of Corrections files, court testimony and news clippings, plus interviews with more than 25 people knowledgeable about the escape left “unanswered questions” that deserve examination by other authorities. The committee did not interview Landon, who denies all the allegations and said he would have answered the committee’s questions.

The senator urged that both the grand jury and the district attorney’s office in San Bernardino County assist with any investigation undertaken by the State Bar and attorney general’s office, both of which examined the evidence against Landon in the early 1970s and found no grounds for criminal charges.

“Everything that appears to be in (Presley’s report) dates back to 1973 and, as far as I know, was available to the State Bar and the district attorney’s office at that time,” Landon said. “The question I have is, unless they have something new, what is the basis for these agencies looking into this again? The fact that they never solicited any input from me also makes me feel it is one-sided.”

Separate Inquiry

Meanwhile, a separate inquiry requested by the board of trustees of Community Defenders Inc., of which Landon is executive director, moved forward this week. Former U.S. Attorney Terry Knoepp, hired in February to look into the allegations, said he has forwarded “some preliminary thoughts” on the case to the board, whose personnel committee met to discuss the findings Friday.

E. Miles Harvey, an attorney and chairman of the Community Defenders board, declined to discuss Knoepp’s conclusions, saying only that the investigation has been suspended pending further direction from the trustees. Harvey said the findings will be presented to the full Community Defenders board and to the Board of Supervisors for review next week.

“The supervisors are the ones who really wanted this investigation, so it would be inappropriate to share this material publicly until they have seen it,” Harvey said.

Veteran Public Defender

Landon, a veteran public defender, has been under scrutiny since he was named to head Community Defenders Inc., a nonprofit corporation selected by the county in January to take over the task of representing indigents accused of crimes.

The allegations against Landon, forwarded to the Board of Supervisors by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), stem from the Oct. 6, 1972, escape from Chino of inmate Ronald Beaty. Beaty escaped when a vehicle being used to transport him to a San Bernardino court hearing was forced off the road. One guard was shot to death and a second wounded.

A prison rights group known as Venceremos was held responsible for the escape and became the target of state and federal investigations. Two months later, Beaty was captured in the Bay Area. He subsequently cooperated with authorities and helped convict four people allegedly involved in the escape plot.

Beaty also told investigators that Landon, who at the time was in private practice in San Diego and assisted inmates with legal matters, had smuggled in 24 hacksaw blades and smuggled out escape plans drawn up in the summer of 1972.

Recanted Testimony

But Beaty recanted that testimony, saying that Landon had nothing to do with the escape or was an unwitting participant--carrying plans without knowledge of what they were.

At the request of state corrections officials, the State Bar investigated the matter but found insufficient evidence for disciplinary action. In addition, no criminal charges were filed.

The Department of Corrections, however, banned Landon from the state prison system, concluding that he was guilty of the smuggling charges. That ban stands today, although Landon attempted in February to have it lifted.

In his statement, Presley said that although the events occurred 16 years ago, the “matter has once again become a public issue.” Presley said that because of Landon’s future role as head of Community Defenders and the directive that continues to bar him from state prisons, “it seems essential” that lingering questions be resolved.

Among the questions he said deserve answers:

- Why did Landon never go to court to contest the order banning him from state prisons?

- Why were three of Landon’s business cards found on Beaty when he was captured by the California Highway Patrol and local police on the Bay Bridge in December, 1972?

- Why, in the months preceding the escape, were there 39 phone calls to and from Landon’s home and office by people involved in the plot?

- Why did the escape participants place a person-to-person call to Landon’s home the night of the escape?

- Are the reasons why three separate investigative agencies decided against prosecution of Landon 16 years ago still valid today?

Responds to Questions

In an interview Friday, Landon answered each question posed by Presley and said he would have responded to the committee but was never asked to. (Robert Holmes, an aide to Presley, said the committee had “considered interviewing him but felt it wasn’t necessary.”)

Landon said he has not formally contested the prison ban because he has not needed to gain access to the system and thus has not had reason to do so. “Take a poll of public defenders and see how many enter state prisons,” he said. “Unless a crime is committed there, we have no reason to be there.”

As for the business cards, Landon said he had been representing Beaty in a civil rights matter when Beaty was incarcerated at Chino and that it was not surprising for him to have the attorney’s card.

Many of the numerous telephone calls, Landon speculated, saying that his memory of many of them is hazy, were received by his answering service, answering machine or secretary. The balance of the calls, Landon said, are mostly brief and likely came from Benton Douglas Burt, a participant in the escape who was out of jail after serving a 10-year sentence and frequently “called to get help about how to settle down and so forth.”

Denies Getting Call

Asked about the call placed the night of the escape, Landon said he never received it.

Harvey questioned Presley’s recommendation and said the questions are “reaching pretty far” and in some cases “ridiculous.”

“A year ago, Alex Landon wasn’t controversial,” Harvey said. “But somebody with motivation dug up this material that is 16 years old--material that did not merit prosecution then--and is trying to reopen the thing . . . . I think it’s caused by people who in some way will be impacted by Community Defenders getting the bulk of the indigent defense work.”

Other reaction to Presley’s recommendation--which an aide to the senator said was made “with significant involvement” by San Diego Assemblyman Larry Stirling--was mixed Friday.

Stirling, who provided the spark for the controversy dogging Landon but said he had “limited role” in the committee’s investigation, praised the senator’s decision.

“The senator is a cautious, deliberate person and he did the appropriate thing while balancing Landon’s right to privacy and the state’s responsibility to look into this,” Stirling said. “These are serious, serious, serious allegations. Two corrections officers were run off the road . . . and shot in cold blood, and substantial facts indicate Landon was responsible for getting the (escape) plans out . . . . The public has a right to know.”

Landon and others have suggested that Stirling’s interest in the issue is politically motivated, stemming from his close ties to the San Diego County Employees Assn., which opposes the Community Defenders contract and favored a conventional public defender’s office run by the county bureaucracy.

But the assemblyman sharply rejected such accusations: “I am not Alex Landon’s accuser, judge or jury. I am just a public official who had a duty to forward information about these allegations to the proper authorities.”

County supervisors, meanwhile, whose final approval of the Community Defenders $40-million contract is still to come, appeared unfazed by the persistent cloud hanging over Landon, saying his fate is distinct from their support for the organization he represents.

“It raises a concern but he’s really just a proposed employee for a contract agency,” Supervisor Brian Bilbray said. “Personalities come and go, but a good concept is a good concept and a bad concept is a bad concept. I voted for Community Defenders because it was a good concept, no matter who’s carrying the flag. That hasn’t changed.”

Anne Charles, a spokeswoman for the State Bar in San Francisco, said Presley had contacted officials in the organization’s discipline section, alerting them that materials regarding the Landon case were coming.

“When we get them, we will review the documents and decide whether the investigation will be reopened,” Charles said.

A spokesman for the attorney general in Sacramento said that office, too, would evaluate any documents forwarded by Presley and then decide whether the matter deserved re-examination.