COSTA MESA : Mistrial in Drug Case of Ex-Times Worker

A Superior Court trial in Santa Ana ended in mistrial when jurors voted 11 to 1 Tuesday to acquit a former Los Angeles Times employee on a charge of dealing cocaine at the company’s Orange County facility.

Shawn Daugherty, 34, of Riverside is the third to go to trial of 20 employees arrested at the Costa Mesa plant on Jan. 31, 1989, in an Orange County Sheriff’s Department undercover operation conducted in cooperation with The Times. The trial of Carlito Carles, 33, also ended in mistrial with a 10-2 jury vote for acquittal. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, defense attorney Milton C. Grimes said. The other, Artis Grigsby, 45, was acquitted, Grimes said.

Two others--Rudolph Maduena, 48, and Paul Hendricks, 35--have pleaded guilty to felony drug charges, Grimes said. All of the employees were fired by The Times.

Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Owen, who declared the mistrial Tuesday in the Daugherty case, set a May 11 date for prosecutors to determine whether he will be retried. Grimes argued to jurors that Daugherty had been the victim of entrapment by a Times employee, who was cooperating with the authorities in the undercover operation.

“This guy asked my client six to seven times to get cocaine for him, and finally he agreed,” Grimes said. “But it was clearly a case of entrapment, and no jury is ever going to see it any other way.”

Grimes represents seven others of the 20. Those cases are still pending.