Drug Informant Says He Was Told to Tape Gates Critics

A narcotics informant who described himself as a “contract employee” of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department during the 1970s and 1980s testified Thursday that sheriff’s investigators instructed him to secretly tape-record his telephone conversations with critics and political opponents of Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates.

But the informant, Richard Wilder, insisted that political harassment was “absolutely not” the reason for his actions.

His testimony came during the third week of a U.S. District Court trial in which private investigator Preston Guillory is seeking $5 million from Gates and Anaheim city officials, alleging that they conspired to harass him with unjustified prosecution.

Guillory, who was acquitted in 1985 of charges that he impersonated a law officer and illegally carried a concealed weapon, was working for former Orange County Municipal Judge Bobby D. Youngblood, one of Gates’ election opponents.

Wilder testified Thursday that the Sheriff’s Department did not pay him for his services. He said he talked with, and tape-recorded, Youngblood and George Patrick (Pat) Bland, both election opponents of Gates, as well as former Orange County Register reporter Chuck Cook and attorney James Ripley.

He said Cook and Ripley were not suspected of crimes. No charges were filed.

Guillory attorney Meir J. Westreich pressed Wilder to explain why he denied making those tapes during a deposition in 1985 but remembers them now. His questions implied that Wilder had changed his testimony because the tapes had been discovered and made public.

Wilder answered that he had merely forgotten about the taping in 1985.

As Westreich persisted, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Gadbois cut him off.

“I’m totally bored with this kind of questioning,” he told Westreich. “He’s not going to answer the way you want him to.” Witnesses breaking down under questioning only happens in Perry Mason mystery stories, the judge said.

During the trial, Gadbois has complained repeatedly about the slow pace of testimony and has rebuked lawyers on both sides.

He warned both sides Thursday that their slow pace is alienating the jury.

“I’m not kidding. You’re boring the hell out of these people. Do you know that?” Gadbois said. “Just look at them sometime.”

Attorneys have predicted that the trial will extend into mid-March.