Gates Cleared of Perjury Claim in Instructor’s Suit

The U.S. Justice Department has cleared Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates of claims that he lied under oath in denying that his staff spied on one of his political rivals.

The investigation was conducted by the department’s Office of Public Integrity, which is responsible for looking into suspected law violations by federal, state and local public officials.

“We failed to find a violation of any federal criminal law,” John Russell, a Justice Department spokesman, said Monday in Washington.

While Russell declined to reveal what prompted the investigation, Rancho Santiago College instructor George Wright has said that he filed a complaint of perjury and obstruction of justice against Gates.

The complaint was based on two separate statements given by Gates in independent but related lawsuits.

In 1985, Gates said he knew nothing of any surveillance involving Wright. The statement was part of his defense of a lawsuit filed by former Municipal Court Judge Bobby D. Youngblood.

Youngblood’s suit alleged that he had been subjected to a campaign of harassment because of his outspoken criticism of Gates.

Central to the Justice Department inquiry was a 1981 tape recording made by sheriff’s investigators of one of Wright’s classroom lectures. The tape recording had been surrendered by lawyers defending Gates in the Youngblood suit. Shortly after the recording surfaced, Gates settled the Youngblood lawsuit out of court for $375,000.

In a separate but related suit, former Orange County Register reporter Chuck Cook claimed that he was placed under surveillance and harassed after he wrote stories criticizing the Sheriff’s Department.

As part of that litigation, which still is pending in U.S. District Court, Gates in a deposition stated that he wanted to correct the earlier statement because he said he had not been aware that Wright was under surveillance until the tape surfaced in the Youngblood lawsuit.

Wright complained that Gates and two former members of his intelligence unit signed contradictory depositions in the case. Russell, speaking for the Office of Public Integrity, said no wrongdoing had been uncovered.

Neither Wright nor Gates could be reached for comment.