CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: ATTORNEY GENERAL : Smith Raises Informants Issue Again

State attorney general candidate Arlo Smith renewed his attacks Friday on Democratic primary foe Ira Reiner for his office’s use of tainted jailhouse informants, charging that the Los Angeles prosecutor should not have provided assistance to such informants with funds from a state program designed to aid crime victims and protect endangered witnesses.

“Those funds are intended to be used for victims and not for convicted felons,” said San Francisco Dist. Atty. Smith at a morning press conference in Burbank.

Smith’s allegations came in the wake of an announcement by the governor’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning that it has begun an audit of the manner in which Reiner’s office employs the state funds. Office of Criminal Justice Planning spokesman Tony Russell said Friday that the investigation stemmed from allegations made by Los Angeles defense attorney Gigi Gordon that witness protection funds have been improperly used by the district attorney’s office to make more than $30,000 in payments to notorious jailhouse informants during the past decade.

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for Reiner’s office, countered Friday that the expenditures were proper because they were employed to relocate informants in order to protect their lives, not for payments for their court testimony.

Russell said the audit, which is expected to be completed within two weeks, will focus on whether the payments “went to lodging, transportation and food and medical costs, as opposed to a fee.” He added that there is nothing inherently wrong with informants receiving relocation assistance as long as they are serving as courtroom witnesses and police agencies have determined that their lives are in danger.

Documents compiled by the district attorney’s office show that at least a dozen jailhouse informants have received assistance from the fund, including Leslie White.

Longtime informant White, who is listed as receiving $5,000 in witness protection assistance, set off a jailhouse informant scandal two years ago when he demonstrated for jailers that he could gather enough information to convincingly fake a murder confession of another inmate whom he had never met.

Gordon said Friday that court testimony and documents contradict Gibbons’ assertions that the funds were used strictly for relocation purposes. In one trial, Gordon said, White testified that he used $2,000 in witness protection funds from a police officer to purchase drugs and a car.

Before Smith’s news conference, held inside the headquarters of a state law enforcement officers association, an employee of Reiner’s press office was asked to leave by Smith’s campaign manager, Marc Dann. Later, Dann accused Reiner of wasting taxpayers’ dollars. “They ought to put their money and personnel into putting gang members in jail rather than putting it into monitoring Arlo Smith press conferences,” Dann said.

Reiner spokeswoman Gibbons said she had dispatched aide David Markman to the conference, “so I could be prepared to make a response” to Smith’s allegations concerning the state audit.