Records Rebut Sheriff’s Version of Killer’s Release

A week after convicted murderer Juan Espino was mistakenly released from jail, Sheriff’s Department officials continued to maintain Wednesday that they had no knowledge at the time that Espino had ever stood trial for homicide.

However, Superior Court records clearly show that on nearly a dozen days in the past month, Espino sat in a downtown criminal courtroom, on trial for the 1994 shooting death of a Hollywood drug dealer.

During that trial--indeed, since late December--the Sheriff’s Department had housed Espino in its jails, transported him repeatedly to court and guarded him in the courtroom, before mistakenly releasing him days after his July 10 conviction.

Espino, 18, who should be in jail awaiting an Aug. 5 sentencing, was still on the lam Wednesday. He is at least the third homicide defendant or convict to be mistakenly released from jail in a year.

At this point, no member of the county law enforcement system--the sheriff, the courts or juvenile officials--has stepped forward to accept blame for the baffling release. However, the various agencies’ officials are suggesting the problem lies in others’ hands.

In the case of the sheriff, the explanations have raised as many questions as they have answered.

Espino was freed from Men’s Central Jail on July 17 after a hearing in which charges in an unrelated robbery case--held in a second downtown criminal courtroom--were dismissed. Sheriff’s officials said they released Espino because they could find no records in their inmate management system showing that he was being held on any other charges or warrants.

Sheriff’s officials, in an announcement last weekend, said they discovered that Espino was a murder convict only after receiving a tip July 18 from an anonymous caller asking why Espino had been released after his conviction.

The sheriff went on to cite “a courtroom paperwork error” stemming from the fact that Espino had been tried for murder, without the department’s knowledge, in Juvenile Court last year. At that time, the sheriff indicated, Espino was housed in Juvenile Hall in the custody of the county Probation Department.

However, court officials, prosecutors and court records have made clear this week that Espino’s murder trial actually took place beginning late last month before Superior Court Judge James R. Dunn, at a time when the defendant was in the custody of the Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff’s officials, who say that they are continuing to investigate the circumstances involving Espino’s release, refused to concede until late Tuesday--after receiving a fax from The Times of a publicly available court record detailing the jury’s verdict--that Espino’s murder trial had even taken place this year.

“This was not in our possession and never has been,” said sheriff’s spokesman Ron Spear of the document, known as a “minute order.” “I don’t doubt the piece of paper you sent me is truthful. We have nothing sent to us from court indicating he was convicted of murder.”

Espino is at least the 14th County Jail inmate erroneously released by the Sheriff’s Department this year, the department acknowledged. In 1995, the sheriff mistakenly released 14 prisoners in the entire year.

The Sheriff’s Department did not release any details on the nature of the crimes committed by erroneously released prisoners, nor how many have been subsequently caught.

One homicide suspect known to have been released by mistake in the past year was Anait Zakarian, 23, of Glendale, who was charged with killing a rival travel agent. She was released after a sheriff’s clerk confused her name with another inmate’s.

Another released inmate was Angel Moya, 27, who allegedly killed a woman in a drunk-driving accident. He was freed after miscommunication among law enforcement agencies over the filing of charges in the case.

Although any erroneous release is disturbing, a leading watchdog of the law enforcement system says the number is tiny in light of the tens of thousands of prisoners processed each year by the department.

“When you look at the entire system, the numbers are minuscule compared to the number of people who flow in and out of the jails on a daily and yearly basis,” said Merrick J. Bobb, a Los Angeles lawyer who serves as special counsel to the sheriff on implementing departmental reforms.

Bobb, though, said the sheriff’s system of tracking inmates does merit a fresh look.

“I’m very interested in gaining an understanding of the system for classifying, sorting and tracking inmates,” he said. “One of the things I’m interested in looking at is the interaction between the court system and the Sheriff’s Department.”

In a May series focusing on problems in the county’s jails, The Times reported that the sheriff’s inmate tracking system badly needs upgrading and appears inadequate to provide basic management information to jailers.

Sheriff’s officials, who say that Espino was transferred to their custody from Juvenile Hall in December, contend that the first step in the breakdown occurred because they were never informed by juvenile officials that the young defendant faced anything other than robbery charges.

Even if Espino were cataloged incorrectly at that time, questions persist as to why the sheriff’s jailers never learned the reason they were repeatedly transporting Espino to Judge Dunn’s courtroom, the site of the murder trial, while in their custody this year.

Spear said written court orders known as “removal orders” calling for Espino’s appearance in Department 119 “did not indicate what the charge was.”

As to why the sheriff’s deputies who served as bailiffs at Espino’s courtroom hearings did not serve a fail-safe role to prevent his release, Spear said they have no time to perform duties “other than courtroom security.”

Superior Court Judges Dunn and Patricia Collins, who handled the robbery case, both refused Wednesday to comment on the mistaken release. Superior Court spokeswoman Jerrianne Hayslett said “there was no breakdown” at the courtroom level.