Anaheim Prosecutors Make Minor Charges Stick : Law enforcement: The tourist-conscious city filed 1,863 drug-related cases and 665 prostitution cases last year. It is one of only 15 cities in the state that handles its own misdemeanor cases.

Scalping a ticket in the parking lot of the Big A or shoplifting a souvenir from Disneyland might not seem like a big deal to some people, but in this city--where tourism is the biggest industry--few crimes are too small to prosecute.

For decades a team of city prosecutors has worked out of a second-floor office in Municipal Court in Fullerton, charged with seeing that misdemeanor crimes committed within Anaheim city limits receive special attention.

Anaheim is the only city in the county with its own prosecutors. Although they rarely make headlines, members of the city attorney’s staff typically handle about 12,000 cases a year, tackling such offenses as thefts, disorderly conduct, minor drug cases and crimes committed against tourists.

“About 90% of the crimes that are prosecuted in court are misdemeanors,” said Mark Logan, Anaheim’s senior assistant city attorney. “Those are the crimes that affect the quality of life in a community day in and day out.”

Municipal Court Judge Stephen J. Sundvold, who currently has a Big A ticket scalping case before him, said the high number of cases filed by Anaheim may indicate “some element of justifying their own existence.”

But, Sundvold added, “I don’t think they are out of line. They enforce the law to the letter of the law. For instance, someone who is selling tickets at a Rams game knows it’s illegal, and the city has a vested interest in protecting the sales of tickets.”

“They view things differently than the district attorney’s office might,” said Brian Ducker, head of the public defender’s new alternate defense office. “If you’re in an office with murders and other felonies, misdemeanors are less important. In an office with only misdemeanors, they grow out of proportion.”

The prosecution division, which dates back to the 1950s, is touted by city officials as crucial to maintaining a positive image for Anaheim, which depends heavily on tourism dollars and has struggled with increasing crime in recent years.

“With Disneyland, the stadium, the arena and the convention center, there are problems unique to Anaheim that other cities don’t have,” said Brent Romney, director of Municipal Court operations in the Orange County district attorney’s office. “They can prioritize what kinds of cases they want to vigorously prosecute and focus on cases that our office might not give priority to.”

Anaheim is one of only 15 cities in the state that prosecute their own misdemeanors. Other local cities turn to the county to handle the cases.

“They are just an excellent prosecutor’s office,” Romney said. “Their criminal division is outstanding with very good, young attorneys. I’d say that close to half of the misdemeanors in North Court originate in Anaheim.”

Anaheim City Atty. Jack L. White said Friday that maintaining the city’s image as a tourist destination is a major reason why funding the prosecution division has remained a priority.

“Anaheim is perceived as a very tourist-oriented, family image city,” White said. “In order to promote that family image, we’ve chosen to devote some of the city’s assets to fighting crime in the prosecution effort.”

White said it doesn’t do much good to simply hire more police officers and not increase prosecution efforts.

The city attorney’s prosecution division costs about $600,000 a year to operate, but more than half of that money is the cost of doing legally required municipal code prosecutions, White said.

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In 1976, the office struck up an agreement with the district attorney’s office allowing the city prosecutors to handle all misdemeanors that occur within the city limits. The district attorney’s office handles felony cases.

As part of the agreement, the county paid for a portion of the office’s operating costs--including $85,000 last year. But that long-running agreement ended in December. White said the county’s decision to cut off the funding came in August, well before the county declared bankruptcy.

“They were already in the cost-cutting mode and felt they shouldn’t have to subsidize Anaheim for a higher level of prosecution service,” White said.

The office is run by Logan, 47, who began working there in 1974 when he was fresh out of law school. He now heads an office that includes seven full-time attorneys and two clerical workers. Two of the division’s full-time attorney positions have been eliminated in recent years due to budget cuts.

Logan said the division’s caseload continues to increase. The crimes prosecuted by the division include misdemeanors, such as shoplifting, and more serious offenses--known in law enforcement circles as “wobblers”--that can be punished either as misdemeanor or felony crimes. Those include auto theft, burglary, credit card offenses, forgery, embezzlement, fraud, receiving or being in possession of stolen property, and grand theft.

“With a growing caseload at the district attorney’s office over the years, they have become more selective of what they will file as felonies,” Logan said.

Anaheim ends up prosecuting a number of drug cases that are refused by the county as felonies because of insufficient evidence. City prosecutors, who filed 1,863 drug-related cases last year, file many cases as misdemeanors by citing laws that make it illegal to possess a controlled substance without a prescription, Logan said.

“I’ve been told that some of the sentences we get are more than they might have gotten if it was filed as a felony,” he said. “If a smaller drug case is filed as a felony by the county, it’s low-grade. In our office, it’s one of the more aggravated cases.”

Although the most severe penalty from a misdemeanor conviction is a fine of $1,000 and one year in jail, Logan said that is enough to keep suspects off the streets.

“We can prosecute an individual for being under the influence of a controlled substance and they can get a one-year sentence,” he said. “A person who is doing this are your thieves, burglars and robbers. If they are using $100 a day on drugs, they might be stealing every day to support the habit.”

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Prosecutors also work hard to curb prostitution, handling 665 cases last year.

“There are so many other crimes that occur along with prostitution,” Logan said. “Narcotics, violence, sex crimes. They all go hand-in-hand.”

Over the years, Logan has established a close working relationship with the Anaheim Police Department. For the past 10 years, he has begun most of his days in the department’s detective division, where he will discuss pending cases.

“It’s worked well for us,” said Anaheim Police Chief Randall Gaston. “The advantage is that we have an ongoing relationship with the attorneys who handle these cases. So we’re able to see a lot more consistency in the prosecution and outcomes. Misdemeanors aren’t given a low priority.”

Crimes given a high priority are those committed by professional pickpockets and hotel and motel burglars, who prey upon unsuspecting tourists. In 1994, there were more than 3,900 theft crimes prosecuted, as well as 572 burglaries.

For instance, in the city’s major hotel area near Disneyland and the convention center, there have been a number of thefts where a thief will distract tourists and then steal their luggage as the victims wait for a taxi outside of a hotel.

“These types of crimes have a great impact on Anaheim, which strives diligently to maintain a family atmosphere,” Logan said. “It’s very important to the continued vitality of this area that these kinds of crimes be kept to a minimum. These people have to be diligently prosecuted.”

Many criminals who target tourists often figure they will not be prosecuted because most victims will not want to return to Anaheim to testify, Logan said. Anaheim prosecutors have circumvented this problem on many occasions with the help of airlines and hotels who have offered to transport and lodge victims at no cost if they return to testify.

“Alaska Airlines once flew three tourists back from Alaska who had been victims of a distraction theft at Disneyland,” Logan said. “The defendants changed their plea once they found out the family was coming back.”