Countywide : Gates Still Targeted in Gun Permits Suit

Two Orange County men who say they were improperly denied gun permits by Sheriff Brad Gates vowed Tuesday to continue a federal lawsuit against the sheriff despite a county decision to pay a $475,000 settlement to a main participant in the case.

Ty Ritter of Irvine, who runs a private foundation in Beverly Hills that retrieves kidnapped children from foreign countries, said he and his brother Frank will pick up where their co-plaintiff Preston Guillory left off.

“We haven’t been in this for 10 years for nothing,” Ritter said. “We feel that Mr. Gates has picked and chosen individuals and supporters he favors to grace them with the privilege of carrying a concealed weapon. Anyone should have that right who needs it.”

Guillory, 45, a Santa Ana private investigator, dropped out of the case last month after the county paid him to end his role in two civil rights suits alleging that Gates investigated political opponents and issued gun permits to cronies.

The other lawsuit alleged that Gates improperly initiated an unsuccessful criminal prosecution of Guillory in 1984 because Guillory was pursing the gun permit lawsuit and was working as a private detective for an outspoken critic of the sheriff. Last March, a jury awarded Guillory $189,894 in damages, but both sides appealed the case.

The Times reported the $475,000 payment on Feb. 17, although county officials either refused to discuss the case or denied that an agreement had been reached with Guillory. Final settlement documents disclosed Tuesday confirm the agreement.

Guillory, who gathered much of the evidence for the gun permit lawsuit, also promised in the settlement that he would not to testify on behalf of the Ritters if the remaining case goes to trial in U.S. District Court. The lawsuit was scheduled to be tried this month, but the settlement resulted in a postponement until Sept. 11.

Guillory and the Ritters first sued Gates in federal court in 1979 after they were repeatedly denied concealed weapons permits--Guillory for a perceived lack of good moral character and the Ritters, who had a bodyguard business, for lack of a good reason.

Disputing the rejections, they charged that Gates’ gun permit procedure was so capricious and fraught with cronyism that it violated their constitutional right to due process. They sought $10 million in damages.

Gates has denied wrongdoing. But the Ritters say they are prepared to provide evidence of impropriety from an investigation of 2,000 concealed-weapons permits issued by the Sheriff’s Department between 1975 and mid-1987.

Their research, much of it Guillory’s, purportedly shows that Gates gave out hundreds of gun permits to business associates, friends and political supporters, who contributed a total of $121,000 to his campaign coffers.

Among other things, the records show that Gates issued gun permits to members of the Sheriff’s Advisory Council, a private charity that raises money for sheriff’s projects, and to 37 members of the Balboa Bay Club, to which Gates belonged.

County officials repeatedly have declined to discuss the pending case or the settlement with Guillory, saying the final paper work has not been turned in to the county risk manager’s office, which administers lawsuits.

Sources close to the litigation said the settlement agreement barred public discussion of the lawsuits until after President Bush’s anti-drug speech in Orange County on March 3 and the March 9 deadline for declaring candidacies for sheriff. A joint news release formally announcing the settlement is scheduled for release today.