L.A. Sheriff Counters D.A. on Fatal Raid : Investigations: Sherman Block says the agencies in the drug case acted ‘in good faith’ when they descended on the Scott ranch.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block on Thursday challenged the conclusion of Ventura County’s top prosecutor that sheriff’s deputies led a drug raid that left a reclusive millionaire dead so the government could seize the man’s $5-million Malibu ranch.

Block, responding to a highly critical report by Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, said he believes his department and other law enforcement agencies acted “in good faith” when descending on the ranch of Donald P. Scott on Oct. 2.

“In reading the report, I find little substance to support Bradbury’s inflammatory conclusions,” Block said in a written statement. “What I do find, however, is a lot of conjecture and supposition.”

Block also criticized Bradbury for what the sheriff considers a “complete lack of understanding of the nature of narcotics investigations.” And he condemned as outrageous and “reeking of sensationalism” Bradbury’s characterization of the sheriff’s search warrant as Scott’s death warrant.

Nonetheless, Block said he had ordered an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the raid to determine whether department policies were violated.

Bradbury declined comment on Block’s statement except to commend the sheriff for reopening his inquiry into the Scott case.

Bradbury, concluding a five-month inquiry into the case, found last week that the raid of Scott’s ranch was not legally justified because the search warrant was invalid. And he blamed Block’s department for the rancher’s death.

“This search warrant became Donald Scott’s death warrant,” Bradbury said. “This guy should not be dead.”

Bradbury also concluded that Sheriff’s Deputy Gary R. Spencer--the lead investigator in the case--lied in a search warrant affidavit and that a federal drug agent could not have seen marijuana plants without binoculars from 1,000 feet above Scott’s ranch as he claimed.

Scott, 61, the heir to a Europe-based chemicals fortune, was killed during an early morning raid on his isolated 200-acre ranch across the Ventura County line from Malibu.

No drugs were found. And while Bradbury concluded that Spencer shot the gun-wielding Scott in self-defense, the prosecutor also said the deputy should not have been on the ranch in the first place.

Block’s response Thursday lacked detail. But the veteran sheriff challenged Bradbury’s assertion that a main reason for the raid was to seize the ranch.

For Bradbury to cite agents’ discussions of the ranch’s value as evidence of their motivation shows that he does not understand narcotics work, Block said.

“A consideration of possible asset forfeiture is a common factor in narcotics investigations today and is a subject routinely discussed by investigators,” he said.

But Block said his department’s priorities in drug raids are “clearly displayed on the walls of our Narcotics Bureau: 1. Crooks in jail. 2. Powder on the table. 3. Asset seizure.”

The sheriff also attempted to refute the logic of Bradbury’s conclusion that Spencer led a multi-agency task force to Scott’s ranch hoping to find drugs and seize the property.

If Bradbury concludes that deputies raided the ranch to seize it, then the district attorney must also acknowledge that the officers expected to find enough drugs to justify the seizure, Block said.

In his report, Bradbury said he believes marijuana was never seen on the Scott ranch even though U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Charles Stowell maintains he was certain of the sighting.

Bradbury also concludes that agents conducted the raid not only to search for those 50 marijuana plants supposedly spotted from the air, but to look for other drugs that might justify seizing the ranch.

Spencer thought he might find other drugs because the deputy knew that Scott’s new wife, Frances Plante Scott, 39, had been involved in other drug investigations, Bradbury said.

In his statement, Block also noted that Spencer cooperated with Bradbury’s investigation, even offering to take a lie detector test.

Bradbury has said he did not order a polygraph of the deputy because the examination is not reliable. But Block said polygraphs are “commonly used as an investigative tool by law enforcement and district attorneys.”

In addressing Bradbury’s motivation for his conclusions, Block raises the possibility that the district attorney timed his report “to coincide with his appearance on “20-20,” the national television show.

That ABC news magazine featured a double-segment on the Scott case last Friday, four days after Bradbury released his report. Both the prosecutor and an ABC representative, however, have said the network timed its broadcast to the Bradbury report and not the other way around.

While his preliminary conclusion is that the Sheriff’s Department acted properly in the Scott case, Block said he ordered a comprehensive internal investigation “to definitively answer that question.”

Meanwhile, other agencies involved in the case are reviewing their roles to determine whether criticisms leveled by Bradbury were justified.

A spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol said the agency is deciding whether it needs to clarify its guidelines for property searches after Bradbury found that a patrol reconnaissance team twice trespassed on Scott’s property a week before the October raid.

“Our agents believe they were acting under the law and appropriately. They thought they had the authority to be there,” spokesman Verne Jervis said. “We’re reviewing the facts . . . and will make a determination of whether their presence there was appropriate.”

Acting as part of a task force to eradicate marijuana, a Border Patrol team entered Scott’s ranch just before midnight Sept. 24 and during the early morning of Sept. 25. But agents apparently were unable to reach the area where marijuana was thought to be growing because of steep terrain and Rottweiler dogs, Bradbury said.

Bradbury faulted the Border Patrol not only for its incursion onto private property but for refusing to allow its agents to speak to district attorney’s investigators.

The prosecutor also said recent assertions by Border Patrol officials that their agents thought Scott’s ranch was public land--and that they went there to search for illegal immigrants--are not believable.

But Jervis said Border Patrol agents were led to believe that illegal immigrants might be found during their search. Jervis said he could not comment on other Bradbury findings until the Border Patrol completes a full review of the case.

In other developments related to the Scott case:

* Gary Auer, the FBI agent in charge in Ventura, said this week that he has forwarded his summary of the Scott case--along with Bradbury’s report and documents--to superiors in Los Angeles, who will send the documents to the FBI headquarters in Washington and eventually to the U.S. Justice Department.

“The investigation’s been done (by Bradbury),” Auer said. “Now it’s a prosecutor’s issue just like any other civil rights case.”

* Scott’s 16-year-old daughter filed a legal claim against the Border Patrol, DEA, National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service for their roles in the case.

An attorney for Susan Scott, the oldest of three children from Scott’s second marriage, called the rancher’s shooting “legalized murder.”