The Tables Are Turned as Attorney Faces Trial : Courts: Following a grand jury indictment, Leonard Milstein is charged with perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice and bribery of a witness.

It was hard to tell that roles were reversed for Leonard R. Milstein on a recent morning, as he sat inside the criminal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

Dressed in a dark suit with a briefcase at his side, Milstein looked like a typical attorney waiting for a hearing to begin.

But unlike other legal proceedings he had attended over the last two decades as a lawyer, this time the 49-year-old Milstein was the defendant, facing charges including perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice and bribery of a witness.

In July, 1991, a Los Angeles County grand jury indicted Milstein, formerly of Woodland Hills, on charges stemming from his role in defending Brad Millward, who had faced the death penalty for the execution-style slayings of two men in the Antelope Valley.

Millward was accused in the killings of Bruce Gruber, 28, of Yucca Valley and Albert Dulyea, 37, of Norwalk, who were shot July 5, 1987, at a desert site east of Palmdale.

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A jury acquitted Millward of killing Dulyea, whose body was found in Millward’s garage, but it deadlocked on the Gruber slaying. Millward agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in that case and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Prosecutors allege in a grand jury transcript that Milstein arranged for jail inmate Albert Gutierrez to give false testimony on behalf of Millward in exchange for a promise to represent Gutierrez in an unrelated criminal matter.

Gutierrez testified during Millward’s trial that he had worked on the car of Daniel Lucero, the chief prosecution witness, following the slayings and that he had discovered rifle ammunition in the trunk of Lucero’s car that might have been similar to ammunition used in the killings.

Gutierrez’s statements, coupled with testimony from a firearms expert for the defense, suggested that it was Lucero--not Millward--who had shot Gruber and Dulyea, wrote Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard C. Neal in a ruling related to the Millward case.

Prosecutors said another jail inmate, Charles Haas, had contacted them during the trial and told them that he also had been approached by Millward and Milstein to testify in Millward’s defense. Haas allegedly told authorities he initially agreed, but later changed his mind. Prosecutors said Haas, fearing for his safety, refused their request to testify during Millward’s trial about his conversations with Millward and Milstein.

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Haas later turned up fatally shot in the same desert area where Gruber and Dulyea were killed, prosecutors said. An investigation into his killing is ongoing.

Milstein referred all questions to his attorney, Michael M. Crain, who described his client as a totally innocent man who “didn’t knowingly take part in anything that was improper.”

“Leonard Milstein was taken advantage of,” Crain said.

Records on file with the California secretary of state show Milstein is president of Central Coast Legal Services in San Luis Obispo. He also is listed as owner of a home in Arroyo Grande in San Luis Obispo County, according to property records.

Formerly based in Woodland Hills, Milstein gained prominence in the San Fernando Valley in the 1980s as chairman of the now defunct Valley School Project, which circulated petitions that called for Valley schools to leave the district.

The perjury case against Milstein is scheduled to return to court Feb. 4 with a pretrial hearing.

Prosecutors said they grew suspicious of Milstein for several reasons, including his accusation that Lucero, the prosecution witness, was the real killer.

Lucero testified during Millward’s 1989 trial that he was driving with his wife and two children along Avenue P when he saw Millward holding a gun several inches from Gruber’s head. Lucero said he heard a gunshot, then saw Gruber fall to the ground and Millward flee.

After witnessing the shooting, Lucero said, he and his family and passersby picked up the victim and drove him to the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station.

But in his opening statements during that trial, defense attorney Milstein charged that Lucero actually intended to kill Millward, but accidentally shot one of the victims--Gruber--instead.

Milstein told the jury that Lucero brought Gruber to authorities to cover up his role in the crime. He charged that Lucero, Gruber and other members of an Antelope Valley drug-trafficking ring killed Dulyea because they thought he and Millward were federal drug enforcement agents.

Milstein’s portrayal of Lucero as the shooter “raised doubts on Danny Lucero’s testimony,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Foltz said. “As a result, there was a hung jury on the one count and an acquittal on the other.”

Around the same time, a sheriff’s deputy assigned to a Los Angeles County jail found among an inmate’s possessions a picture of Lucero as well as one of Milstein’s business cards with the locations of the slayings written on the back, said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Portillo, who prosecuted the Millward case.

“This guy, for no legitimate reason, was in possession of these items and was trying to pass them to another inmate,” Portillo said. “At the same time, we noticed all of Millward’s witnesses were coming out of the county jail.”

The last straw, Portillo said, was when Haas, the inmate, contacted authorities during the trial and told them that he had been recruited by Millward and Milstein to testify on Millward’s behalf in exchange for $3,500. After first agreeing to participate in the scheme, Haas told Portillo that he changed his mind and chose not to perjure himself.

Portillo recalled asking Haas, who was serving a prison sentence himself, if he would be willing to testify at Millward’s trial about the incident.

“He said no,” Portillo said of Haas. “He said he would be dead if he did.”

Shortly after his release from prison, in December, 1989, Haas was found executed with a shotgun blast through his chest in the area of the desert where Gruber and Dulyea had been discovered, Foltz said.

“Whether there’s a connection or not, who knows?” Portillo said.

Prosecutors say that despite their mounting suspicions, the case against Milstein did not come together until Gutierrez contacted authorities and confessed to perjuring himself during Millward’s trial.

“He was the witness who was needed,” Foltz said. “He was the key to the whole thing.”

Gutierrez told a federal grand jury that Milstein contacted him and, in return for Gutierrez’s testimony at Millward’s trial, offered to represent him against charges of receiving stolen property.

“He said he would talk to the judge and get me off the hook,” Gutierrez said, according to the grand jury transcript. “He said that he knew the judge personally and that it wouldn’t be no problem.”

Gutierrez said Milstein had him falsely testify that following the murders he had worked on Lucero’s car at his auto repair business and that he found the large-caliber rifle ammunition inside the vehicle, according to the grand jury transcript. A defense expert had testified earlier that a similar type of ammunition had been used to kill Gruber and Dulyea.

To bolster his testimony, Milstein asked Gutierrez to write up 14 false invoices that purportedly confirmed that Gutierrez had worked on Lucero’s car in September, 1987, according to court records.

Investigators later learned that the invoices Gutierrez had presented had not been manufactured until December, 1987, three months after the work allegedly had been performed, Foltz said.

After testifying, Gutierrez became disgruntled when Milstein quit representing him in the unrelated case, Foltz said. Gutierrez subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 28 months in prison in that case.

“He just didn’t show up any more,” Gutierrez testified before a grand jury. “He stopped representing me because he didn’t need me anymore.”

Milstein’s attorney, Crain, confirmed that his client represented Gutierrez in an unrelated criminal matter, but declined to comment on the details of the incident. Crain said Milstein is the real victim in this case.

“He didn’t know there was any perjured testimony given in the trials or that any documents were phony or he never would have presented them,” Crain said. “He is the victim of false statements made against him by career criminals and other dregs of society.”

Foltz said the fact that Gutierrez has a criminal record actually will work in favor of prosecutors when the case hits trial.

“Only a crook would do this . . . testify falsely,” Foltz said. “If the guy wasn’t dirty, it would be harder to believe.”

During a recent interview, Foltz said no clear motive for Milstein’s alleged actions has been identified.

“There’s only one person on the planet who knows the truth,” said Foltz as he pointed to Milstein sitting across the hallway--this time a defendant waiting for his hearing to begin.