Officials Relieved by Retrial Decision : King case: The L.A. district attorney will ask that a new trial of Police Officer Laurence Powell be assigned elsewhere.

Ventura County leaders, stung by the criticism heaped on their area in the wake of the King beating case verdict, expressed relief Wednesday after hearing that the chief prosecutor wants one of the defendants to be retried elsewhere.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said he would seek a new trial for Los Angeles Police Officer Laurence M. Powell in an urban county that reflects the ethnic makeup of Los Angeles.

But some local leaders were offended because, they said, Reiner’s request implied that prosecutors could not obtain a fair verdict if Powell were retried in Ventura County.

The first trial in Simi Valley ended April 29, when the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all but one count filed against Powell and three other officers accused of beating motorist Rodney G. King.

Reiner said his prosecutors will ask Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg on Friday to schedule a new trial against Powell on one count of assault under color of authority--the lone charge on which the first jury deadlocked. Reiner also said he would seek to move the trial to “an urban county, somewhat similar in makeup to Los Angeles County.”

After the announcement, Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said, “I don’t know if I agree with his rationale, but I don’t necessarily disagree with his request to move the trial elsewhere. We didn’t want the trial, and it hasn’t caused us anything but pain.”

In recent weeks, Simi Valley officials have mounted an aggressive campaign to disassociate the city from the unpopular verdict, which ignited riots in Los Angeles and other cities.

“Given what happened last time, I don’t know if anyone could give him a fair trial,” Stratton said of the Powell case. Reiner “is going to have a hard time finding a place in California where the pressures of what went on are not going to have some bearing on how people perceive the court case--right, wrong or indifferent.”

Still, Simi Valley Councilman Bill Davis said he was upset about the implication that Reiner would have trouble finding a fair jury in Ventura County.

“I really take it as a slap in the face,” he said. “But by the same token, because of all the heat we took the first time around, it would probably be better to have it somewhere else. If Mr. Reiner had done a good job the first time around, this wouldn’t be necessary.”

Ventura County Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman said Reiner should have realized that Simi Valley was the wrong place to hold the first trial and pushed harder to get it moved.

“Where was this big insight the first time around?” Clayman asked. “I think he’s a little bit of an ‘Ira-come-lately.’ ”

Clayman, a former Los Angeles defense attorney, said Ventura County juries generally are as fair-minded as the more ethnically diverse panels he encountered in Los Angeles. But he added, “This may be the wrong kind of case for this area.”

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said he was not disappointed--and not offended--by Reiner’s decision to seek a new trial for Powell elsewhere.

“I think he’s responding to political concerns,” Bradbury said. “He’s been criticized for not attempting to have the case assigned somewhere other than Ventura County. I’m sure he’s not about to incur the same criticism again if he can avoid it.”

The county’s chief prosecutor added, “Small-minded people have suggested that the verdict was motivated by racial bias. That was simply not true. I know juries in the county better than anybody. I’ve been a prosecutor here for 25 years. I have yet to see a racially motivated verdict.”

But Frederick C. Jones of Oxnard, past president of the Ventura County chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, hailed Reiner’s announcement, because he believes that racism is widespread in the county.

“I think it was a wise decision,” Jones said. “It allows a jury to be selected with the ethnic makeup that is compatible to the area in which Mr. King was accosted and injured.”

Jones said the first trial “should have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that racism is prevalent in Ventura County. It did that.” A second trial, he said, “would exacerbate the situation.”

Ventura County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk said she believed that “our system worked” during the first King beating trial. “Whether moving it to an urban county will make a difference in the way the system works, I don’t know,” she said. “In Simi Valley, both sides picked the jury. It’s going to be the same in an urban county.”

At the same time that Ventura County officials were learning that Powell probably will not be retried in one of their courthouses, bills from the first King beating trial were being tallied.

Vince Ordonez Jr., assistant executive officer for the Ventura County courts, estimated Wednesday that Ventura County will bill Los Angeles County for about $300,000 in costs connected with the King beating case.

Ventura County Sheriff’s Lt. Haskell Chandler said the county’s total will include $120,906 in overtime pay for seven extra deputies and two additional sergeants assigned to the East County Courthouse during the trial.

Chandler said the county also will seek reimbursement of up to $50,000 for seven unarmed private security guards who were hired to help during the trial.

County officials said other expenses included tinting courtroom windows for security purposes, installing telephone and television lines, sound system modifications, jury pay and additional custodial services.

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