Last Charges Dismissed in Newport Drug Case

A controversial case involving a confiscated boatload of marijuana in 1985--the largest drug seizure in Newport Beach history--ended Tuesday with dismissal of charges against the fourth and final defendant.

Harbor Municipal Court Judge Frances Munoz dismissed the case after the prosecutor said he could not proceed against defendant Bruce Patrick Malley because a witness was missing.

Later, outside the courtroom, Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Borris said his office has given up trying to prosecute anyone in the case.

“It’s a shame we were unable to prosecute, but at least $22 million in drugs have been kept off the streets,” Borris said.

Five tons of marijuana were seized from the Sea Dolphin, a boat that was tied up at a Newport Beach municipal slip. Estimates of the street value of the marijuana have ranged from $13 million to $22 million. The marijuana smuggling cases against the three previous defendants were dismissed after a judge ruled that police had no legal authority to search the sailboat. That ruling, later upheld by a state appellate court, reportedly sparked a feud between the Harbor Court judges and Newport Beach police.

Borris on Tuesday declined to identify or give any details about the missing witness. “The witness was not a key witness, but part of a chain of witnesses, and when any part of that chain is missing, we could not proceed,” he said.

Although Borris said he objected to the dismissal of the case, he added that it might as well end in Municipal Court at the preliminary hearing level “because we could not have proceeded in Superior Court without this witness.”

The affair began on Jan. 21, 1985, when a Newport Beach police officer spotted the 45-foot Sea Dolphin tied to a city slip and resting low in the water. There is a 20-minute time limit for the use of such slips, and the officer cited people aboard the sailboat for staying too long. Police then made a search of the vessel and discovered the huge cache of marijuana.

The three original defendants in the case were Richard W. Nelson, Victor Paul Lucini and David Paul Choy. Their lawyers successfully argued that the 20-minute-limit sign at the slip was not clearly posted. Thus, the lawyers said, the police never had a basis for searching the boat.

Harbor Municipal Judge Russell A. Bostrom was the first judge to rule that the search of the Sea Dolphin was unconstitutional. Bostrom’s ruling, later upheld by the state Court of Appeal, reportedly triggered a feud between Newport Beach police and the Harbor Municipal Court, several sources have told The Times Orange County.

Investigation of Judges

The sources also said the feud ultimately led to the investigation of some of the Harbor Court judges, including Municipal Judge Brian R. Carter. Carter, who has been under investigation by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, announced earlier this month that he will resign in February.

The fourth defendant, Malley, 32, a commercial artist from Santa Cruz, was not arrested with the original three from the Sea Dolphin. Police had a fugitive warrant for him, and Malley turned himself into Harbor Municipal Court on Dec. 21, 1988.

Malley’s attorney, Robert Weinberg, on Tuesday sharply criticized the district attorney’s office for trying to prosecute Malley. “The district attorney said there would be new evidence, when in fact there was not,” Weinberg said. “Mr. Malley went through needless anxiety and legal expense.”

Newport Beach Police Officer Bob Oakley, a spokesman for the department, on Tuesday said the dismissal of the case against the final defendant “was not exactly unexpected in view of the (earlier) decisions to disallow the evidence.” Oakley said the rulings that the boat search was made illegally had in effect thrown out the evidence in the case.