Inquiry Fails to Tie Landon to Jailbreak : Lawyer Claims Charges Part of Planned Attack

A lengthy investigation into allegations that San Diego attorney Alex Landon aided a 1972 prison escape came to a close Monday when the San Bernardino district attorney announced that he had found no evidence supporting the filing of criminal charges in the case.

In a prepared statement, Dist. Atty. Dennis Kottmeier said that, because of “the absence of any evidence” that would support the filing of a complaint against Landon, he considers the issue of the lawyer’s alleged role in the Chino prison break “a matter which is now closed.”

Kottmeier praised investigators for their “exhaustive efforts” in examining piles of documents and conducting countless interviews in researching the allegations. But he declined to elaborate on their findings or release their report.

When informed of Kottmeier’s decision Monday by a reporter, Landon, a defense attorney who has practiced locally for 16 years, thanked colleagues in the legal community for their support and said the accusations that have dogged him are groundless.

“My position has been all along that the matter was investigated in the early 1970s and there was no basis at that time for any allegations against me, with the exception of the statement of a convicted felon who was an admitted perjurer and who had changed his story,” Landon said.

‘Some Insinuation’

“This new investigation began because there was some insinuation of additional evidence,” Landon added. “But, to this day, I have yet to see any evidence that was not presented 16 years ago.”

He called the allegations, aired nearly two years ago by Assemblyman Larry Stirling, a San Diego Republican, “dirty politics” because they were made while county supervisors were deciding whether to create a public defender’s office or contract for indigent defense services with Community Defenders, a nonprofit company then headed by Landon.

“It was clear to me that this was all part of a planned attack on Community Defenders,” Landon said. “I’ve practiced law in San Diego all these years, and this never came up until there was a political issue at stake.”

Stirling, however, said he was merely acting in the public interest in bringing the allegations to the supervisors’ attention. He also speculated that Kottmeier would have filed charges against Landon but could not build a solid case because of “legal technicalities.”

“I’m not a criminal-law expert, but it sounds like he found some technicalities making the documents inadmissible in court,” Stirling said. “I will not second-guess the district attorney. This was a judgment call made by the appropriate person. There’s nothing further I can do.”

Prison Guard Slain

The accusations against Landon stem from the Oct. 6, 1972, escape of inmate Ronald Beaty from the California Institution for Men at Chino. Beaty fled when a vehicle being used to transport him to a San Bernardino court hearing was forced off the road. One prison guard was shot to death during the escape and another was wounded.

Two months later, Beaty was captured and cooperated with authorities in the prosecution of four people allegedly involved in the plot. Beaty also testified that Landon had smuggled 24 hacksaw blades to him and had carried plans for the escape out of the prison.

Beaty later recanted, however, saying variously that Landon had nothing to do with the escape or had ferried plans out unwittingly. Landon, who was representing Beaty in a civil rights matter at the time, denied any involvement in the escape.

The San Bernardino district attorney’s office investigated the incident at the time and declined to file charges against Landon. At the request of state corrections officials, the State Bar of California also conducted an inquiry and found insufficient evidence for disciplinary action.

Renewed attention was cast on the case by Stirling, who forwarded a thick file of documents on Landon’s alleged involvement to the Board of Supervisors. Among them were records of 39 telephone calls placed to Landon’s home and office in the months preceding the escape from those involved in the plot. Also included was a State Department of Corrections’ directive banning Landon from entering any state correctional facilities.

When presented with the allegations by Stirling, the board was in the midst of deciding how best to replace its widely criticized system for defending the poor in court. There were two competing proposals: One called for contracting with the nonprofit Community Defenders and the other favored establishing a more traditional public defender’s office run by the county bureaucracy.

Intial Endorsement

The board first endorsed the Community Defenders concept. But then the allegations against Landon gained steam, and support for that option began to wane. Landon, in an effort to salvage his firm’s contract with the county, resigned his as head of Community Defenders in early May. But the supervisors later that month voted to launch the in-house public defender’s office.

Meanwhile, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations, of which Stirling is vice chairman, requested that San Bernardino prosecutors reinvestigate the allegations. Kottmeier said he lacked the resources for such an endeavor, so the state attorney general provided agents. Their findings were then reviewed by two deputy district attorneys in San Bernardino.

There was little celebrating Monday among Landon’s colleagues and other proponents of the Community Defenders concept, which was favored by a blue-ribbon commission that studied the indigent defense question for months.

“Unfortunately, the results were totally predictable, and certainly all members of the commission knew that there would be no criminal prosecution from any further inquiry into the matter,” said M. James Lorenz, the former U. S. attorney in San Diego and a member of the Community Defenders’ board of trustees. “It’s unfortunate that Mr. Landon, who is a highly qualified attorney, was tarred by these baseless allegations.”

“I’ve always been convinced that Alex did not participate in any illegal activity, and I only wish there could be as much publicity about his vindication as there was about the accusations,” said E. Miles Harvey, former chairman of the Community Defenders board.

Regarding Stirling’s role, he said: “I thought he was in error when he stirred the pot and, unfortunately, a tremendous amount of government time and money has been spent on this folly.”

Supervisor Brian Bilbray, who first supported Community Defenders but later cast the deciding vote in favor of the public defender approach, said publicity about the allegations amounted to “a lot of free advertisement” for Landon.

“It’s very disconcerting, and I don’t like to see anybody get dragged over the coals,” Bilbray said. “But it helps an attorney in his position. He has a much higher profile now.”