Accused Killer Set Up in Jail, Attorney Claims

The lawyer for accused murderer Harvey Rader said Thursday that he plans to assert in court that a Los Angeles police detective tried to arrange a fabricated confession by having Rader placed with informants in jail.

The detective denied the charge, saying all he had done was tell jail officials accurately that Rader had once been an informant.

Jail officials said they then decided on their own to house Rader with informants for his safety.

Rader’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Mark Lessem, dismissed the notion that Rader was an informant who needed protection from other inmates.

He said the only time Rader provided information to law enforcement was six years ago, when he testified for the prosecution under a grant of immunity in a receiving stolen property case. He said the defendants in that case posed no danger to Rader.

By telling jailers that Rader was an informant, Lessem said, Los Angeles Police Detective Larry Bird put into motion a series of events aimed at bolstering a weak case against Rader by “trying to get somebody to say my client confessed when he didn’t confess. . . . They attempted to take away his right to a fair trial, and we intend to put evidence of this on at a preliminary hearing.”

Rader, a one-time Reseda car dealer, is accused of murder in the 1982 disappearances of Northridge residents Sol and Elaine Salomon and their two children.

In part because the Salomons’ bodies have not been found, the case against Rader is relatively weak. Although he has been a prime suspect in the deaths for years, he was not charged until last September. “I can’t tell you this is the best or strongest case in the world,” the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lonnie Felker, said at the time.

Shortly after Rader was charged, he was taken to Los Angeles County’s Men’s Central Jail from federal prison, where he had served time for passport fraud.

‘Special Handling’

That day, Bird spoke with Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Halstead, part of a two-man unit of jailers that arranges for “special handling” of inmates who are especially violent, need protection, are members of prison gangs or are informants.

Bird and Halstead independently told The Times that Bird had told Halstead that Rader had been an informant.

Halstead said such information is commonly passed on to his unit.

Halstead’s partner, Deputy Charles Brittain, said he had already read an article that mentioned Rader as an informant. He was apparently referring to a Los Angeles Magazine article then in circulation that said, “Rader had been granted immunity for testifying against his cohorts.”

The two jailers said they decided, along with a superior, that Rader would be safest at the Hall of Justice Jail, where informants are usually housed. Brittain said that he consulted with Rader and that Rader agreed.

Lessem said Rader told him he was not consulted, that Rader was merely told that Los Angeles police wanted him moved to the Hall of Justice Jail.

When Rader arrived there, records show, he was placed in an informant tank on the 10th floor. There, several people tried to get Rader to talk about his case, Lessem quoted him as saying.

Lessem said a public defender’s investigation has found that meanwhile, in a higher-security informant area on the 14th floor, there was a bustle of activity.

Lessem said:

- Longtime jailhouse informant Leslie Vernon White told the public defender’s office that another informant on the 14th floor, Sidney Storch, had learned from police that Rader was being taken to the Hall of Justice Jail days before he arrived.

- Two other informants, whose names Lessem asked not be published, said Storch received a phone call and began bragging about how he would “book” Rader. (“Book” is jail slang for saying another inmate confessed, whether he did or not.) One of these informants said he heard a jailer tell Storch that the call was from Storch’s “juice”--jail slang for a law enforcement contact who does favors for an informant. He also said both White and Storch wanted to “book” Rader.

- White said Storch panicked when he learned that Rader was incarcerated on the 10th rather than on the 14th floor, because that would make it impossible to convincingly “book” Rader.

- White said Storch then told a jailer, Sheriff’s Deputy Sam Porter, that Rader needed the higher security the 14th floor offered because he was a member of the Israeli Mafia who had been sent to kill an inmate witness in another high-publicity case.

- Porter confirmed that Storch provided him with that information but said he believed that Storch was trying to manipulate him and concluded that, as a precaution, Rader should be sent back to Men’s Central Jail. Rader was sent back.

- White said he called Bird during that weekend and told the detective that Storch goofed up their effort to “book” Rader and that Bird told him not to worry, --that Rader would be sent back later.

Bird denied that. He told The Times that he was called by White at home but that when White asked him to have Rader sent to him, “I told him we couldn’t do that.”

Halstead told the Times that Storch tried to reach him at home but that he refused to take the call.

Brittain said he was angry that Rader had been sent back because he believed that Rader had been endangered. He said he was also upset because the deputy who sent him back had not attempted to verify what turned out to be bogus information that Rader was a hit man.

However, he and Halstead said they decided to keep Rader in an isolated area of Central Jail rather than return him to the Hall of Justice because they were concerned that, if they did send him back, he would be set up.

Halstead said he got three phone calls from White that made him think that might happen. In one, he recalled, White “just said, ‘Bring him over here and I’ll walk past his cell. That’s all I need.’ Knowing Leslie White, that’s all he would need. I wasn’t about to let that happen.”

Bird said it does not make sense to suggest that he would have tried to use Storch and White to bolster the case against Rader, particularly because of White’s unreliability.

“In fact,” Bird said, “White was specifically told he would never be used as a witness in this case, even if he had (obtained) a confession.”

Bird said this information was conveyed to White by the prosecutor, Felker.

Felker confirmed that but said he was not certain whether the conversation took place before or after Rader had passed through the Hall of Justice Jail.

Storch, reached by telephone at a half-way house, said “Rader? Rader? Who the hell is Harvey Rader?”

He later acknowledged knowing who Rader is, but denied attempting to “book” him.