LAKE VIEW TERRACE : State Shies Away From Bryant Case

The state attorney general on Monday once again opposed taking over the Bryant Family murder case, a change that defense lawyers want because of alleged conflicts of interest in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

State prosecutors had made it clear in the past that they did not want to take over the case, in which five members of the alleged San Fernando Valley crime syndicate are charged with murdering four people in Lake View Terrace in 1988. The state has argued that the district attorney’s office is fully capable of handling the case and has no conflict.

The attorney general’s lengthy response to the most recent motion for a change of jurisdiction was filed late in the day Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, and was unavailable. But the district attorney’s office confirmed that state prosecutors once again opposed the request, asking that Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith take the case away from county prosecutors because they had allegedly withheld evidence of witness tampering and other improprieties.

A hearing on the matter is set for 9 a.m. today in Smith’s courtroom in the downtown Criminal Courts Building.

Defense attorneys allege that at least one deputy district attorney withheld the allegations until after the judge had made a decision Dec. 17 to allow county prosecutors to stay on the case. Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti has since removed that prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Maurizi, from the case, saying only that she could be called as a witness.

In the first recusal motion, defense lawyers claimed that county prosecutors had a conflict of interest because of prosecutors’ own claims that the Bryant Family had infiltrated the district attorney’s office and the Los Angeles Police Department. On Dec. 17, Smith refused to change jurisdiction, saying he found no evidence of such infiltration.