Judge Says Reiner Requested Private Talk : McMartin case: District attorney investigator’s conversation sets off controversy. Aide says D.A. ‘never had any intention’ of speaking privately with judge.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner attempted to talk privately with the judge in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case after news reports surfaced about plea bargain negotiations with defendant Ray Buckey, the judge said Monday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg, who was in New York when a district attorney investigator telephoned last Tuesday night, said he refused to make himself available at a specific hour the next morning since contact between prosecutor and trial judge would be improper.

“I personally cannot conceive of any reason why Mr. Reiner attempted to communicate with me ex parte (outside the presence of lawyers for the opposing side) and off the record,” Weisberg said angrily, as the trial resumed after a week’s recess.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Thompson, Reiner’s second-in-command, said the judge had misinterpreted what he termed “a totally innocent contact. . . . Mr. Reiner never had any intention of speaking with the judge.” He said the investigator had been asked only to determine the judge’s whereabouts in case prosecutors wanted to ask him to arrange a conference call with both sides in the wake of controversial developments in the case.

Last week, defense attorney Danny Davis disputed Reiner’s assertions that Buckey had never been offered a plea bargain--and released to reporters portions of a secretly recorded tape of the negotiating session held just before the start of Buckey’s retrial last month.

The call to the judge was made the day that the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal newspaper, first reported details of the tape, in which prosecutors asked Davis to find out whether Buckey would consider a no-contest plea in which he would have served no additional jail time but would agree to register with the state as a sex offender.

The disclosures last week rocked Reiner’s campaign for state attorney general, and Monday’s statements by the judge could result in further political repercussions.

On Monday, Reiner’s campaign manager, Sam Singer, refused comment on Weisberg’s statements and referred calls to the district attorney’s office.

The campaign manager for San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith, Reiner’s opponent in the June Democratic primary, lost little time in lashing out at the Los Angeles prosecutor.

“This guy is unbelievable,” said Smith’s manager, Marc Dann, about Reiner. “(With) the revelations about Reiner’s handling of the McMartin case, the public has to draw its own conclusions if this guy has what it takes to become attorney general.”

Weisberg, himself a former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, told lawyers for both sides Monday that a person identifying himself as Ed Aleks, an investigator for the district attorney’s office, had contacted him while he was on vacation to attend his stepson’s college graduation in the East. “He stated that Ira Reiner wanted to talk with me the next morning, and wanted to know if I would make myself available to receive a call,” the judge said.

After Aleks filled Weisberg in on news reports about the negotiations furor, the judge said he explained that he could not have any conversations with Reiner “unless there was a valid reason to do so.”

“I did not make myself available, and there was no further communication,” he said.

Outside the courtroom Monday, Davis said he was “shocked” by the judge’s revelation. Such communication is “not only unethical but intolerable for a man seeking to be the chief law enforcement officer in the state,” Davis said. “He is a desperate man.” The attorney said he would not seek a mistrial. Reiner was not available for comment Monday.

Late Monday, however, Thompson released a copy of a letter he said he was sending to the judge, explaining that Aleks only wanted to determine a time for the district attorney’s office to contact Weisberg.

“The reason the district attorney’s office wanted to contact the court was to ask the court to place a conference call to all of the parties regarding the matter that had appeared in the newspapers that day,” the letter said.

Thompson said that Reiner, concerned about the possibility of a mistrial, had asked him to find out where the judge was staying, and he had passed the request down the chain of command to Aleks. Aleks referred inquiries Monday to a district attorney spokesperson.

Thompson said that after he met with prosecutors the morning after the call to the judge, he determined that no contact was necessary after all.

He said he does not consider it a breach of ethics for a prosecutor to contact a judge in order to schedule a meeting with both sides participating. However, several criminal law professors said that any effort by one side to contact the judge is highly unusual and could be deemed a violation of the state rules of professional conduct.

Dean Gerald Uelmen of Santa Clara University School of Law said, “Even a request for a meeting should be in writing or should be with the consent of the other lawyers or in their presence.

“The rule is designed to preserve the appearance of justice as much as it is the substance of justice. And just the appearance of a back-door kind of approach to a judge raises suspicions.”