Sheriff Stands by His Order to Investigate Critic of His Conduct

Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates, under a barrage of hostile questions, testified Thursday in federal court that a criminal investigation that he ordered into the actions of an outspoken critic was proper and justified.

Gates flatly denied that the investigation into the actions of Preston Guillory was politically motivated, the key contention in Guillory’s $5-million civil rights lawsuit, which entered its third day in U.S. District Court.

After an investigation initiated by Gates’ office, Guillory was charged by Anaheim prosecutors with impersonating a police officer, illegally carrying a weapon and seven other misdemeanor allegations. He was acquitted on all counts in 1985.

Gates First Testimony

“If I ever thought the information was bad I would have stopped the investigation,” Gates testified. “I still believe today as I did then that the facts . . . were valid and still are valid.”

Thursday marked the first time Gates has testified in the Guillory case, which is the first to reach trial of several cases alleging misuse of office by the sheriff.

While the sheriff’s conduct of the Guillory case is the focus of the lawsuit, Gates spent most of the day answering questions about other investigations his office has conducted into the actions of political foes and critics. Guillory’s lawyer, Michael Cisarik, told jurors when the trial opened this week that he would prove that Gates’ office has “a practice or policy” of investigating longtime sheriff’s foes.

Charges Against Guillory

The charges against Guillory related to his work in 1984 on behalf of three political foes of Gates, including former Municipal Judge Bobby D. Youngblood. Youngblood, in a civil rights lawsuit, had alleged that Gates’ office illegally spied on him--a lawsuit that the county settled by paying $375,000 before trial in 1987.

The settlement came after the disclosure that a tape recording of a Youngblood associate had been found among the possessions of a sheriff’s deputy. Gates, who had denied in a sworn statement that any such evidence existed, was forced to amend his statement.

On Thursday, Gates insisted that he had relied on the results of an investigation by subordinates when making the statement.

“Was the statement true when you made it?” Cisarik asked.

“Yes,” Gates responded.

“Is it true now?” Cisarik asked.

“It’s not true now,” Gates answered.

The officer who made the tape, Stan Kincaid, was not on duty at the time he made the recording, Gates said.

Gates initially testified that his office had conducted a single investigation of Youngblood, one which did not result in criminal charges.

But under questioning by Cisarik, he acknowledged that his office had looked into allegations of irregularities in Youngblood’s service as a municipal judge on three separate occasions. Gates testified that he did not consider those inquiries to be “investigations.”

Gates also acknowledged ordering an investigation in 1982 of Chuck Cook, a reporter for the Orange County Register who had written what the sheriff described as false stories about jail operations, which are under Gates. “They found nothing improper, and that was the end of it,” Gates testified. Cook, no longer with the paper, has also sued Gates for civil rights violations.

The examination of the sheriff often turned on obscure players in the decade-old bid by Youngblood to unseat Gates. Gates remained cool and collected as Cisarik repeatedly probed for an advantage.

At one point, Gates denied that a particular private investigator had provided information used in the first Youngblood investigation. Cisarik then produced a lengthy memo purportedly from the investigator, addressed to Gates, providing such information.

“I’d like to clarify that,” Gates said, “I wasn’t aware that she gave any information but obviously she did.”

Guillory has claimed that Gates’ office orchestrated bogus charges against him to harass him for working for Youngblood and to punish him for filing an earlier lawsuit against the sheriff. In that case, which is still pending, Guillory claims that Gates’ office used the approval and denial of permits to carry concealed weapons to help friends and punish foes.

Gates testified that he “had no fear at the time and I still don’t” worry that Guillory will prevail.

In a hint of what may come today when Gates is questioned by his own lawyer, the sheriff at one point began listing the reasons Guillory has been denied a gun permit.

Gates said his office had received reports that Guillory “beat a prisoner” when working for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and had once been thrown out of a Torrance courtroom for wearing a firearm.

Thursday’s proceedings were at times heated. U.S. District Judge Richard Gadbois at one point cautioned Cisarik about straying from the podium, saying he was “starting to roam around like a raging lion.”

Cisarik was cautioned several times about repeating questions which Gates had already answered. “If you want him to say it your way, why don’t you come up here and squeeze him by the neck and see if you can get him to do it,” Gadbois said.

Also a target of the judicial barbs was Gates’ lawyer, Eric Dobberteen, who rose regularly to object.