O.C. Prosecutor Is Charged in Drug Sting

A deputy Orange County district attorney was charged with conspiracy Monday after federal authorities said he divulged information to a key suspect about the investigation of an alleged drug ring that made and distributed methamphetamine.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan Ray Kazarian, 35, a former member of the district attorney’s gang prosecution unit, is the first Orange County prosecutor in 30 years or more to be charged with a felony, said Tori Richards, spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office.

He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

“This painful and unfortunate incident should not in any way be taken as a reflection on the more than 1,200 honest, hard-working men and women of Orange County’s district attorney’s office,” Dist. Atty. Anthony J. Rackauckas said.

Rackauckas said his office cooperated with the multi-agency investigation led by the FBI after learning in January that Kazarian was a suspect.

Federal prosecutors on Monday also charged 10 other alleged drug ring members with distributing cocaine and prescription drugs and laundering money.

Among the defendants are the alleged leader, John David Ward, 28, of Orange, and Howard Irvine Coones, 44, of Garden Grove, founder and president of the Orange County chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle club.

Kazarian is charged only in connection with the methamphetamine conspiracy. He was arrested Sunday at his Aliso Viejo home.

Federal prosecutors said they used a phony warrant to nab Kazarian.

The warrant was issued in connection with Ward’s alleged activities and named a confidential informant, who didn’t exist. Investigators, intercepting telephone conversations, later caught Kazarian passing the warrant information on to Ward, U.S. Atty. Alejandro Mayorkas said.

“I can’t say what that would have meant to the life of that informant if he did exist,” Mayorkas said during a news conference in Santa Ana.

A haggard-looking Kazarian, dressed in a jail suit, appeared in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana on Monday afternoon with the other defendants. His family, his parents and his wife, who is pregnant, gestured their support.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Nakazato denied Kazarian bail and set his arraignment for June 21.

Arguing that Kazarian is a flight risk, Assistant U.S. Atty. James Spertus cited a taped telephone conversation in which Kazarian and Ward allegedly discuss fleeing to Cuba and Costa Rica, respectively, if their activities were uncovered.

Kazarian’s attorney, Malcolm Guleserian of Westminster, argued in court that there is no evidence to support the prosecution’s claims.

“He’s done more to make this community safe than anybody in this room,” Guleserian said.

Kazarian handled a wide range of cases in his six years with the department. In 1997, he prosecuted a high school football coach who was found guilty of molesting two former students. Earlier this year, he won long prison terms against four Los Angeles gang members after they were found guilty in a string of jewelry store robberies.

In a recent interview, Kazarian, who attended Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, listed his greatest professional accomplishment as being promoted to the gang unit.

“Don’t do the job unless you can do it competently and thoroughly,” he told the Daily Pilot last fall.

Police officers who worked with him said Kazarian often lived up to his motto. “He really wanted to go out there and prosecute these gang members,” said one officer who worked with Kazarian for several years. “He hammered them hard.”

Rackauckas said he was told of the investigation in January. He said he moved Kazarian in March from the Target Gang Team at the Costa Mesa Police Department to a job inside the office so the deputy “could be more efficiently monitored.” The move was done as part of a routine rotation to avoid raising Kazarian’s suspicions, he said.