Witness Says Deputies’ Report Not Used : Prosecutor Insisted on 2nd Study of Gates Foe

The Anaheim prosecutor who filed criminal charges against an outspoken critic of Sheriff Brad Gates testified Friday in U.S. District Court that while Gates’ detectives initiated the investigation, he used none of their reports in deciding to prosecute.

The prosecutor, Assistant City Atty. Mark A. Logan, said he was “uncomfortable with the entire situation” because Gates’ detectives had investigated the case. He insisted on a separate investigation by Anaheim police.

The testimony came in the second week of a $5-million lawsuit against Gates and Anaheim officials by private investigator Preston Guillory, who is alleging that Gates conspired to deprive him of his civil rights.

The suit alleges that Gates ordered the investigation to harass Guillory, who at that time was associated with a political spying lawsuit against Gates.

Previous witnesses testified that the investigation into Guillory for allegedly carrying a concealed weapon and posing as a police officer began in Gates’ intelligence unit in 1984. Their files were delivered in person to Anaheim Police Chief Jimmie D. Kennedy by Gates’ chief aide, Undersheriff Raul Ramos.

Logan said Kennedy warned him that he would receive the case and that he should examine it “carefully.”

Logan found the file to be very confusing, he testified, and called Kennedy.

“I told Chief Kennedy I was uncomfortable with the investigation and felt a lot more comfortable with an Anaheim detective,” he testified.

He testified that he wanted “an independent investigation so bias could not even be alleged.”

Logan was concerned about the propriety of sheriff’s detectives investigating a person involved in a lawsuit against the sheriff, he said.

“Anyone in public life . . . has to scrupulously avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest or impropriety,” Logan testified.

Logan said that while he had seen no impropriety in the sheriff’s investigation, “it would have been better to turn it over to Anaheim (police) initially.”

He said Kennedy was reluctant to have his department involved in the investigation, but after Logan persisted, the chief agreed to have an officer assigned.

Logan testified that the case had apparently come to him because misdemeanor crimes that occur in Anaheim are usually prosecuted by his office, not by the county district attorney’s office. He said he called the district attorney’s office, however, in an unsuccessful effort to get free of the case.

“I would have loved to (have gotten) rid of it,” he testified.

He added, however, that he could not rid himself of the case simply by refusing to file charges. The facts warranted the charges, and if presented the same case today, he would file charges again, he testified.

Guillory was acquitted of all charges in the case in 1985.

Logan said he believed witnesses interviewed by an Anaheim police detective, who said Guillory had led them to believe that he was a police officer and was carrying a concealed weapon when he appeared at an Anaheim apartment complex in 1984 to serve papers in a lawsuit against Gates.

Logan testified that he had read a letter written by Guillory before the incident, which stated that he would wear a concealed weapon, even if he had no permit, when he thought his safety was at stake.

Logan said he also read a report by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, which had investigated a previous incident in which Guillory was alleged to have posed as a police officer.